RV Laundry Day: What Fits, What It Costs and Where It All Dries

We travel full-time in a Jayco Eagle fifth wheel with two cats, a Great Dane and our daughter Mackenzie. We usually stay one to two weeks in each spot and move on weekends. Here’s how laundry actually works when your whole house is under 300 square feet.

Laundry doesn’t stop just because your house has wheels. If anything, it gets a little more interesting. No laundry room down the hall, no stacking machines in a closet, and every campground does it a little differently.

Here’s what RV laundry day looks like for our family of three (plus the fur crew): what fits, what it costs and where it all dries.

No Washer in the Rig (and Why We’re OK With That)

Our rig is very space-efficient, and it doesn’t have a washer or dryer. Instead, we use the on-site laundry at campgrounds, and sometimes a wash, dry and fold service in the area.

Every so often, we also need to find a dry cleaner for Stefan’s suits. For all of it, we lean heavily on Google reviews to find places with fast service that won’t destroy our clothes.

How Often Is Laundry Day?

Here’s our rhythm:

• Towels and sheets: once a week.
• Clothes: once a week, unless we’re doing a ton of activities and making piles of dirty clothes.
• Pet stuff and blankets: every week or two.

On the road, I take the lead and Mackenzie helps with the washing. Everyone folds and puts away their own clothes. That way, they can actually find them later.

What Fits: A Normal Week Is 4 to 6 Loads

A typical week takes four to six loads. Here’s how we split them up:

• Clothes: two machines, lights and darks, for all three of us.
• Sheets: one machine for all the bedding.
• Towels: one machine.
• Pet stuff: always separate.

What RV Laundry Costs

Campground Laundry

We’ve paid anywhere from $1 to $4 per load at on-site campground laundry rooms.

• Quarters: Many RV parks still run on quarters. Some have a quarter machine right in the laundry room (love that), or you can exchange bills for quarters at the front desk.
• Apps: Some campgrounds use laundry apps. They’re very practical and can alert you when your load is done, but in our experience they’re usually the most expensive ($3+ per load). Prepaying into those accounts can be a pain, too, if they don’t let you add a custom amount. You may end up with a few cents (or more) sitting in your account until you visit again.

Wash and Fold Services

Wash and fold is usually priced by the pound, and it varies. We’ve had pet blankets and bedding done at a wash and fold, and a single comforter can run $30 at some places. But can you put a price on your dog’s bedding not smelling like dog?

One we’ve used several times and loved: Navarre Beach Laundry, during our stays on the Gulf Coast. They text you when it’s finished. When we used them, their prices were:

• Wash and fold, next day: $2.00 per pound
• Wash and fold, same day (dropped off by noon): $2.50 per pound
• Wash and go, same day (you fold): $1.50 per pound
• Comforters, quilts and blankets: $8 to $25 each, depending on size and thickness

Where It All Dries

We use the dryers for a lot of items and pray that the low-heat or delicates setting exists, and works, on the machines we’re using. Usually we get lucky and everything comes out fine.

For everything else, we have a collapsible drying rack that fits inside our shower. We set it up in there, or in the living room if someone needs the shower during drying time.

Where We Keep Dirty Laundry and Supplies

• Laundry bags, not hampers: We use hanging laundry bags similar to these (I love the handle). Mackenzie has one in her bunk area, and we have one in our room next to the closet. She also sometimes uses one like this. Everything goes in, and we sort on laundry day.
• An IKEA bag instead of a laundry basket: A big plastic basket just took up too much space. The IKEA bag folds flat and works for so many other carrying jobs.

The Detergent Question: Does It Matter?

For us, yes. We’ve had a lot of trouble with colored detergents staining our clothes, and liquid detergents and softeners are heavy and bulky.

So we switched to Arm & Hammer laundry sheets. They smell great and do a great job, even on pet bedding. For fabric softener, we use Downy scent beads. We fell in love with them back in our sticks-and-bricks house in The Woodlands, and they’re a lightweight choice for life on the road.

Towels, Sheets and Pet Bedding

The bulky stuff gets its own routine:

• Towels and sheets weekly. We keep backup sheets and towels in case the laundry cycle doesn’t go as planned.
• Throws and dog blankets every two weeks. The cozy throw blankets from the living room and the dog blankets get washed to remove the cat fur.

Can You Put Pet Bedding in Every Laundry Machine?

No. When we travel, we always look for designated pet machines, or signs asking you not to put pet bedding in the machines. Pet bedding can leave a lot of hair behind, and plenty of folks have allergies, so we never want to cause problems. When we do use community machines, we wipe them down and clean the dryer lint trap out well.

When the Laundry Room Is a Deal-Breaker

A laundry room with only one or two of each machine is murderous, because everyone has to wait around for a turn. If we spend more than an hour waiting on a machine, we’ll probably end up finding a wash and fold service somewhere.

And honestly? Getting your laundry back clean, fresh-smelling and folded is a really nice luxury every now and then.

How Our Wardrobes Changed

Less closet means less laundry, and going full-time changed how much clothing we own.

• Mackenzie already had a selective wardrobe, so she didn’t have much trouble.
• Us adults, with various work clothing needs (we have to look like respectable folks from time to time), had to make some choices. We cut a lot, and thankfully we get to wear casual clothes most of the time because we work remotely. We also rotate t-shirts in and out regularly since I love collecting them as we travel. 
• Cold-weather gear went into storage. We don’t travel much in cold weather, so the thick jackets, scarves, and winter goods are packed away. That alone cut about a third of our clothes.
• Shoes: I also put a lot of my shoes into storage and kept out about 6 pairs that I wear regularly.

This was my closet the week we moved out of our sticks-and-bricks house: mostly boxes headed to storage. The few things on hangers, one tote and a set of packing cubes are what came with me in the RV.

Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. We only recommend things we actually use.

Want to see how we decided what came with us? Read how we decided what to keep, sell, store or let go before going full-time.

Our Best Tips for Your First RV Laundry Day

• Set a reminder if you leave. We don’t sit in the laundry room babysitting our clothes, so we make sure to come back promptly to move them, especially when machines are limited.
• Don’t hog the machines. Even when there are lots of machines, we use two of each at most. That leaves plenty for everyone else.
• Bring backups. Spare sheets and towels save the day when laundry doesn’t go to plan.
• Keep pet bedding out of shared machines unless there’s a designated pet machine, or use a wash and fold.
• Check Google reviews before trusting a laundromat, wash and fold or dry cleaner with your clothes.

Setting up camp somewhere new? See how we do it in our RV campsite setup, and find more everyday RV life on our Life on the Road page.

What’s your RV laundry routine? Machine in the rig, campground laundry or wash and fold? Tell us in the comments!