Drying Clothes

Hi Ty,

... we haven't tried Shamwow, but it could be a very good way to dry clothes when traveling.
... If you have time before your departure, we suggest you try it at home — conditions away will probably be much the same as Chicago, we assume.
bon voyage!

P

I've watched the commercial and suspect the actual product may be tiny (even though it says, "cut it in half and use it to...).

I use a chamois rather than a towel for wringing my clothes. It works amazingly well. Not only does it take almost all the water out of your laundry, it wrings to near dry and is ready for the next item immediately. It hang dries quickly so it's ready to pack in the morning.

You can get a very nice 15 sq. ft. real chamois at Costco for $12. I have used some of the synthetic products but don't think they work as well.

Brad- thanks for the tip about the chamois. I didn't think about that for wringing out hand laundry. Great idea!

I use "The Absorber" for my car. It works well, and I'll be bringing one on my trip, too. They seem to work best if you don't let them dry out completely, so a baggie would be advisable. :-)

Be careful about using a REAL chamois to wring out your clothes. I found it kind of slimy and stinky. Maybe an artificial shammy would do better.

We used the RS travel towels to wring out our wet handwashed clothes. Roll the clothes up inside (or fold neatly if you are so inclined) and then just walk around on the "towel/clothing" combo for a couple of minutes (kids like doing this). Most of the water is absorbed (or squished out) and the towel and clothing will be dry by the next day.

Forgive my naivety, but wouldn't it take just as long to dry the towel itself afterward? A day to dry the towel, a day to dry clothes...seems like a wash to me (pun intended)

Use a hair dryer.
The towel will stay wet for a while.

We also use the Rick Steves travel towels everywhere we travel. We have used them for wringing out clothes (besides bathing) and they work great. We take them even on weekend trips to visit our adult kids so they don't have to wash towels after we leave. Just bought one for my youngest adult son to use also when he travels. I would highly recommend them. We used them in Europe for wringing out our handwashed clothes (and bathing) and they worked well.

We also used Rick Steves' xtra large travel towell to squeeze out excess water from out clothes. The hung the clothes over night....dry next morning.

The towell dries fast.

I use the Absorber as a swim towel, too. Much cheaper in the auto section than the same thing at a sporting goods store. And yes, they do work better if they are damp. I just keep mine in the case it came in.

I find the chamois tends to smell more like my laundry soap than the other way around. A synthetic won't have any smell.

My wife and I also pack a travel towel each. They come in handy when the one-each paper-thin towel many budget hotels provide aren't adequate. We purchased ours several years ago when travel towels first came out. They were good to have but fairly thin and seemed to get saturated quickly. We just bought some new microfiber towels that are meant for car drying (also at Costco), they are amazingly absorbant, larger and thicker than our first towels. They came with microfiber wash mitts in a set; the set was cheaper than I've seen single towels advertised for.

Hi Otter, re: drying the RS towel. These things are really thin, really absorbant and dry incredibly quickly.A wet RS towel will dry overnight No Problem.

I always change clothes as soon as I get to my night's accommodation, and wash the stuff I take off so it will have the max time to dry.

I use the bathmat to absorb most of the water before hanging the clothes to dry. Although I have been in plenty of places without a hairdryer, they have never failed to have a bathmat. (Why pack an extra towel when the hotels provide a bathmat?) I don't have to worry about taking the wet bathmat with me the next day, and my bathtowel is still dry for my morning shower.

This won't work for everyone, and it's particular to your situation, but here's a way that worked great for us on our trip we just took.

Since it's terrible to have one-night stays in any city, we'll suppose that you'll have two nights at the lodging you're checking into. Either on the day of check-in or early the next day, do your laundry in the tub. Rinse it well! Dry it outside on a makeshift line (we used some hangers on a strap from our luggage hanging on the shutters). This will be enough time to dry for most laundry except for those dreaded cotton socks. Our clothes came out great even in humid Venice. Thin clothes can dry in one night, so if your clothes are thin (most ladies' clothes are thin enough) you can still do this the night before you leave.

For the socks, we waited until before we were going to be taking a night train, washed them, and put them in a ziplock bag. Once on the night train, we stuck the socks out the window and closed it on them - those socks get nice and dry in less than an hour! Turn 'em over, and within a couple of hours you've done 8 or 10 socks.

We used a PackTowel from MSR. I think it's the PackTowel Lite. (Check the Onebag.com website for more info on the towel). It's super lightweight & super absorbent. You wring the clothes out by hand, and then wring them out again wrapped in the PackTowel. Then you just wring the towl out & it dries in a couple of hours. It worked so well, I would never travel without it if I expect to do washing by hand. Revision: Actually it's the PackTowel Ultralite from MSRgear.