Parade aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.
One of the best parts of going on vacation is the break from our daily duties that comes with it. For a week or so, we swap out cooking dinner and taking out the trash for sitting by the pool or on a white-sand beach. But there’s one chore that doesn’t magically disappear while we’re away: laundry.
While we might get to forgo the task of doing a load, we sure do still produce a lot of it on a trip, and dirty clothes are even more of an eyesore than they are at home when they’re crumpled in a pile next to your suitcase or strewn about the floor of your hotel room. When I was traveling full-time, I discovered the solution to the dirty laundry pain point — and now it’s always on my packing list. A foldable travel laundry bag is the cheap and simple (and overlooked!) answer to the problem.
Related: 45 Travel Essentials, According to Packing Experts
Since purchasing a travel laundry bag years ago, I have brought it on every trip I’ve gone on. Short trips, weekend getaways, month-long backpacking trips — you name it, this bag has come with me. While it might seem like an unnecessary item, there’s no better option; a plastic grocery bag isn’t big enough to hold all of your dirty clothes, and trash bags can rip and don’t pack well when full. And for a typical price of under $10, why wouldn’t you give it a try?
Grace Haass
Why You Should Trust Us
As I mentioned before, I bring this bag with me on every trip I take. I carted it around the world for two years in my travel backpack, and it came in equally handy on multi-month hostel stays where I had to carry my laundry to a laundromat and hotel or Airbnb stays when I didn’t have a laundry hamper. No matter where I travel or for how long, a laundry bag comes along.
Travel Smarter, Not Harder
There are many travel laundry bags on the market, but the best ones, in my experience, are the polyester ones that fold up into a square and zip up around the edges. When compacted like this, the bag is a tiny, flexible and convenient item that takes up virtually no space in your luggage. When you’ve accumulated some laundry on your trip, you can simply unzip the bag, fold or roll your clothes up and stick them inside of it. This way, they’re separated from your clean clothes, and you can easily stick the bag in a closet or drawer out of sight and pull it out when it’s time to go home. Or you can just keep it in your suitcase the whole trip if you’re not much of an unpacker, and your dirty clothes will be organized neatly away from your clean clothes.
The polyester fabric is lightweight, which is good for those overpackers who are always bordering on the 50-lb checked bag limit; the bag is light as a feather. It’s also pretty breathable, so any sweaty or slightly wet clothes won’t get musty when kept inside the bag. When you get home, the clothes and the bag can both be easily washed in the washing machine.
Related: 7 Best Travel Outfits for Women
Top-Rated Foldable Travel Laundry Bags
Though you might not have heard about them before, luckily this is not some obscure item that’s hard to come by. They are easily purchased online for a screaming deal.
Amazon/Canva Pro
This 2-pack of bags is just $8.99, and you can choose from a variety of color combinations.
Amazon/Canva Pro
Another 2-pack for a bargain at just $7.99, these bags zip into circles instead of squares.
Amazon/Canva Pro
These bags have handles, which make them easy to carry around. This is especially helpful if you’re in a location where you have to go to a laundromat to wash your clothes.
Up next:
Related: ‘I’ve Been Solo Adventuring For 3 Decades—This Is the One Destination Everyone Should Visit in April’
