Doing Laundry in Europe

That is not true. I have used laundromats in several countries in Europe. Google is your best friend. Just Google a city plus the word "laundromat" and usually several/many will come up.

You heard wrong.

Every country I have been to in Europe has very nice laundry facilities. You can find standard coin operated ones, many also offer to do the laundry for you (wash and dry) for only a few Euro more than you would spend in the coin machines which allow you to go about your sight seeing without wasting time in the laundry.

As others have already said, there are definitely laundromats easily available. Also, not sure what type of accommodations you’re using, but you might get somewhere with laundry on site. We tend to rent apartments and I pick at least one place midway through our trip with a washer. We also like to pack light and only travel with carry ons. It can become an experience in itself. It was fun, feeling like a temporary Italian, hanging our clothes out to dry on the line off our balcony in Sorrento.

There are laundromats in Amsterdam, but most are not self-service. I prefer this to drop-off service, because I saw unscrupulous laundromat owners co-mingle loads from different customers. They just put different loads into big nets.

I think there should be some co-op ones in Munich too, because they are found in Berlin.

In some cities, such as Stockholm and Zurich, laundromats are few and far between.

We’ve often stayed at a Bed-and-Breakfast type place, and sometimes owners are happy to do a little laundry, for a stated price or even offering to do it for free.

Apartments or houses we’ve rented that come with a washing machine sometimes come just with a washer, but not a dryer (need to hang clothes to drip dry), but sometimes it’s a combo machine, that washes and then dries, but they can take a while, and some effort to figure out their different temperature and fabric-type cycles.

Being able to leave your clothes for someone to do allows more time for sightseeing - just make sure you’re back before they close or your clothes will be spending the night there. There’s alway the hand-wash-in-the-bathroom-sink method, which can get you a relatively clean pair of underwear or socks for the next day - just so there’s time for them to dry.

We've done laundry in multiple European cities, including Amsterdam. Closest to our hotel was:
Bejo Wasserette
Kerkstraat 375
1017 HW AMSTERDAM

Just a block from the Magere Brug (Skinny Bridge).
Ask at the desk of your accommodation for one nearest your location.

Sometimes the terminology is different than the word laundromat. I had difficulty finding a "laundromat" in London. I later learned they call it something else. Maybe a launderette?

Washing will be fine. We actually pack little single wash packs with us. Its the drying that will be an eye opener as to how expensive it is. So we'll do a dryer till stuff is just damp, then take it back and hang it up all over the hotel room for the night with the windows open.

Look at Google maps. Just enter Amsterdam or Munich laundromats. All kinds of them pop up. Many have their own website.

I prefer use drop, wash, dry, fold services to free my time from doing laundry.
In all my years of doing laundry in Europe, I’ve actually only used a laundromat twice. If you are in one location for a few days, your hotel may have a laundry service too. Or rent an apartment with a washer. Dryers are less common.

I would suggest that you do not pay attention to these fairy tales, eg on the existence of coin laundries in Europe. I don't listen to these pieces of so-called advice.

Of course, there are coin laundries in Germany. The only one I know of in Munich is in a youth hostel...Wombats ca 2-3 mins from the Munich central station.

If you were going to Frankfurt, I know of one not too far from the Frankfurt Hbf.

It's the drying that will be an eye opener as to how expensive it is.

Francis, that wasn't our experience in Amsterdam. The dryers at the laundry I mentioned above worked SO well that practically everything was dry in one cycle.

Using an apartment washing machine, I found the spin cycle to get clothes much less damp than my machine at home -- apartment did have a "dryer" but it was what my mother would have called a drying rack. Overnight worked fine for most items., but a 2-night or more stay was preferable.

Google the translation for the word Laundrymat in both languages and then you can find them easily.
German cities certainly do have them. There are dozens of countries in Europe, none of them are alike. Where did you hear that Europe doesn't have laundrymats?

I had heard that European countries do not have laundromats like in
the US. Is that true?

Not true for Germany.

And especially not needed to do a risky apartment reservation in Munich. Prefer a hostel or a hotel with laundromats, e.g. Meininger or Adina (opens in 2019). A lot of apartments are rented illegally to tourists and they sometimes disappear between booking and arrival. Avoid bxxking.com and AxxBxB for apartment bookings in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. Co-living is not an issue - means renting only a room or a bed in a hosts apartment.

In Germany do a (map) search for "Waschsalon". A larger provider of laundromat stores is EcoExpress.

The British term for laudromat is "laundrette," and the British term for having laundrette staff do your wash for you (so all you do is drop it off and pick it up) is "service wash."

If you're using Rick Steves books, he usually lists places to do laundry (both do-it-yourself and service wash) for each city and town.

There are certainly places where laundromats are difficult or impossible to find. Munich and Amsterdam are not two of those places.

We did a 28 day drive tour of Wales and England and I found a website for all the launderettes in the UK.
We did laundry twice during that trip and it took less than 2 hours. Cost was about 12 Pounds each.

I remember being in Rome 35 years ago and we could not find a self service laundry. Our B&B told us there were none in the area. We could have paid by the bundle.

We lived in Germany from 87-91 and while in temporary quarters with the US Army, had the use of the Army laundromat, but I don't remember ever seeing one on the economy. That doesn't mean they don't exist.