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Took me 9 days in Lisbon to figure out a 3 euro laundry hack, and I felt like a genius and an idiot at the same time
Back when I first started traveling on a tight budget, I used to pack a whole suitcase of clothes for a 10 day trip, which meant paying hotel laundry prices or hunting down a wash and fold spot every few days. Last trip to Lisbon I finally tried washing stuff in the sink with a bar of soap and hanging it on a travel clothesline I got for $8, and it worked way better than I expected, though it took me until day 9 to actually trust the process. My mom used to do this on road trips back in the 90s, and I always rolled my eyes at her for it. Now I do it on every trip and my packing list is half of what it used to be. Anyone else got a sink laundry setup that actually dries overnight, because my socks stayed damp for two days straight.
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reed.elliot20d ago
Man, I gotta push back on one thing here: sink washing with a bar of soap works, but the soap isn't what's keeping your socks damp for two days. That's just physics. Cotton holds water like crazy, and Lisbon in most seasons is humid enough that nothing thin dries fast indoors. What actually fixed this for me was switching to synthetic or merino socks and rolling them in a towel first before hanging. You step on the towel roll to squeeze the water out, then hang. Cuts dry time from two days to overnight, easy. The bar soap thing is fine, but a tiny bottle of Dr. Bronner's rinses out faster and won't leave that weird film on your stuff.
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