Rick Steves had some good ideas long ago on how to discretely wash your laundry in the sink of even your finest hotels.

Bring along a sink stopper, pack some Woolite in your checked luggage, a good Stain Stick, and bring some very large, sturdy Ziplock type freezer bags. Maybe some inflatable hangers or extra wire ones.

Every night, wash your socks, underwear, shirts, and so on in the sink. Rinse well. CLEAN UP any tell tale drips -- don't leave a mess.

Wring the clothes out very very well and put them between towels and roll them up to remove more water. Hang them in the bathroom to dry over night.

They should be dry by boring, but anything that isn't hang discretely in your closet. Jeans and shorts might take another day to dry.

If you have a heavily soiled item, use the stain stick first, then fill a sturdy large Ziplock bag with some detergent and water and add the item to the bag and let it soak for a few hours or overnight.

We used this method on a three week budget trip through Italy and never had a problem.

You could do this for 2 weeks, and then spend one afternoon at a laundromat for a good clean of everything, then repeat.

Anonymous wrote:Discussions like this reinforce my personal, sad opinion that DC folks (or at least the $ makers) are not the liberal arts majors who studied abroad for at least their jr. or soph. years but awee rather business and/or pre-law peeps who are now here working their fingers to the bone to support their families in this NoVA/DC/MD area? But anyway, yeah, probably pretty much what anyone suggested previously will work or ya'll can just try to handwash stuff as you go, or you can ask the hotel conceirge to recommend local (or hotel) laundries, etc. It is not like we, Americans, are the only ones who have eve had to clean clothes before. Questions and discussions like this make me sad.

Makes me sad that your qualifications didn't equip you to offer either valuable insight or uplifting poetry. Instead, here goes another useless pseudo comment...happy?

We always stay in Hilton properties when traveling to other countries. What it lacks in local flavor, it makes up with irons, hair dryers, etc.

We often use hotel laundry service, and if I get it to them by the pick-up deadline (usually 9 a.m.) it has always come back the same day (usually 6 p.m.).

I don't mind washing underwear, bras, lightweight tops, etc. in the sink, but the bigger stuff...ugh. I'd rather be sightseeing. Plus, to me, most clothes just look and feel better when they've been laundered.

Anonymous wrote:When you first arrive go to a discount store and buy an iron. Irons are not standard in hotel rooms in Europe.

This IS a critical point. Before you leave for your daily excursion, make sure your T-shirt is ironed.

When you first arrive go to a discount store and buy an iron. Irons are not standard in hotel rooms in Europe.

This is one of the reasons that we tend to stay in apartments when we travel. Otherwise some of the more budget hotel chains like holiday Inn Express often have coin operated machines somewhere in the building.

Same poster as above and hopefully, this isn't totally obvious info:

go get LET'S GO Europe. Or LET'S GO whatever country you are going to. Don't even buy it if you don't feel like it, but just leaf thru it about the sections on laundry. It'll be really straight-forward and inexpensive.

Hope this helps. . . . . . . .

Discussions like this reinforce my personal, sad opinion that DC folks (or at least the $ makers) are not the liberal arts majors who studied abroad for at least their jr. or soph. years but awee rather business and/or pre-law peeps who are now here working their fingers to the bone to support their families in this NoVA/DC/MD area? But anyway, yeah, probably pretty much what anyone suggested previously will work or ya'll can just try to handwash stuff as you go, or you can ask the hotel conceirge to recommend local (or hotel) laundries, etc. It is not like we, Americans, are the only ones who have eve had to clean clothes before. Questions and discussions like this make me sad.

Do you have any friend living in Europe? You could visit and catch up while washer & dryer work hard.

Maybe do a little laundry every night in the hotel sink so you don't have a whole load at the end of the week.

I did my laundry in the hotel sink. I brought my own detergent and lightweight clothes that dried fast. To aid in drying, I rolled them in the hotel towels to soak up extra water before hanging them. I hung them everywhere in the room, but bonus if you have a balcony. It really didn't take up that much time. I was there for about two weeks and did laundry twice.