Submitted by Kennedy Butch on the 2022 winter session program in Italy sponsored by the Department of English…
Packing enough clothes for a trip can be very difficult with limited space in a suitcase, especially for an extended trip. Doing laundry while traveling can be an easy solution to this problem. After two weeks, I found myself completely out of clean clothes. Considering my program had three weeks left, I had no choice, but to do laundry. I was a little nervous about this because I had never been on a trip so long where I had to wash my clothes—normally I stuff enough outfits for everyday of my travels into my suitcase and it barely zips shut!
I researched many different methods and learned that my hotel had a laundry service where they would pick up my dirty laundry from my room, send it out to be cleaned, and return it to my room that very same day. Although this method sounded very intriguing, the cost was way higher than I was prepared to spend to wash my clothes—for women, it cost $8 for a single pair of pants. I then learned that most hotels offer similar laundry services where they charge per piece of clothing and the prices are much higher than alternatives.
I then began to look up laundromats near me in Florence and I was surprised to learn that there were several within a ten-minute walk. I loaded all of my dirty clothes into my carry-on suitcase and began to walk to the ‘Wash & Dry’ with my friends (we looked ridiculous rolling our suitcases down the street).
The laundromat had several washers and dryers for us to all do our laundry at the same time. We had to use euros to purchase ‘washing tokens’ that worked for both the washers and dryers, as well as purchase laundry detergent and softener from the vending machine on site.
The laundromat method was much more inexpensive than the laundry services at the hotel—in fact, it cost me less to wash and dry a whole suitcase of clothes at the laundromat than it would have cost to wash a SINGLE PAIR OF PANTS using the hotel laundry service. In total, we were there for a little over an hour waiting for our clothes to go through the washing and drying cycles. There were several different locations we could have chosen, but we decided to go to one that was near several cafés. While waiting for our laundry to be done, we were able to grab a coffee and work on school work. Although this method of doing laundry was very different for me, we were able to make the most out of the situation and our time.