I am in the third and final week [sniff, sniff] of a vacation at an Adirondack camp, which is what they call cabins in the backwoods here. It is a 45-minute drive to the nearest laundromat, where it costs a whopping $3.50 per load to do wash, and another $3.50 if you use the dryers there. I can't believe how expensive that is, and besides, who wants to spend half a day away from paradise to do their laundry? Not me!
That's why I want to send a bucket-load of thanks to you, @bchaplin, for sharing your dry bag/laundry idea in your post about your trip to Nigeria/London.
It has been a godsend! I bought a 10L dry sack and brought along some low-sudsing liquid detergent, and so far I haven't had to make one trip to the laundromat. [To be fair, my sister has, because this system doesn't work for sheets and towels. And there is only so long you can sleep on the same gamey sheets.]
I am able to wash about two shirts and two pieces of underwear per dry bag load, and all in all it takes about ten to fifteen minutes of my time in the morning. I put everything in the bag, seal it up, then use the handles on each end to agitate it back and forth for as long as my arms can stand. Maybe this could be a new upper body workout! Then I let it sit and soak for a few minutes, coming back to agitate again and even do some rubbing of the clothes through the sides of the bag. When I am done, I rinse at least twice, wring out as much as possible, and hang on an outdoor clothesline to dry. I've even done shorts and a nightgown in the dry bag, though I haven't tried it with denim jeans and am a bit doubtful of how well that would work.
Of course it's not as good as a washing machine, but it does get clothes clean enough for the camp: which means that next year, I won't have to overstuff my Aeronaut 45 quite as much as I did this year to carry three weeks' worth of clothes. Hurray!
So again, thank you @bchaplin. You're my hero.
~Nancy