This free laundry day trip planner works out laundry days from trip length and clothes carried. Enter your trip days, tops carried and wears per top, and the tool shows how many days of fresh tops you carry, how many laundry sessions you need, and how many tops a no-laundry trip would demand, so long trips need far less luggage.
Laundry is the lever that makes long trips pack small. Without it, a three week trip needs three weeks of clothes, which means a huge case and a heavy bag. With one or two planned laundry stops, the same trip needs a week of clothes worn twice, and the bag stays small enough to carry comfortably every day.
To use the tool, enter your numbers in the fields above and press the calculate button. The results table updates at once, and you can change any number and calculate again as often as you like. Everything runs in your browser, so nothing you enter is sent to a server, and you need no account and no sign-up.
The formula starts with fresh days, which are tops times wears per top. Laundry sessions are the number of fresh blocks the trip needs, minus one, because the first block is what you carry. Tops needed with no laundry are trip days divided by wears per top, rounded up, which shows the saving in plain numbers.
Example: for a 21 day trip with 5 tops worn twice each, the tool gives 10 fresh days, 2 laundry sessions, 11 tops needed with no laundry, and a wash every 10 days. Wash on day 10 and day 20, and 5 tops cover a three week trip that would otherwise need 11.
Tip: book laundry into the trip, not around it. A hotel laundry service or a launderette near the hotel on a rest day costs an hour, while an unplanned laundry hunt on a sightseeing day costs half a day and a lot of patience.
Tip: wear each top twice, but not on consecutive days. Airing a top overnight between wears keeps it fresh longer, so a two wear top worn on day one and day three lasts better than the same top worn on day one and day two.
Tip: carry a small laundry bag and a travel wash line. A bag keeps dirty clothes separate, and a line over the bath dries hand-washed items overnight, which can replace a whole laundry session on a short trip.
Common question: How often should I do laundry on a long trip? Roughly every time your fresh tops run out, which this planner calculates as wash every days. For most travellers that means one wash per week, which is easy to fit into a rest day.
Common question: Is hotel laundry worth the cost? For a few key pieces, yes, because it saves carrying a second bag. For a full load, a local launderette is usually far cheaper, so use the hotel for urgent items and the launderette for the rest.
Common question: Can I wash clothes in the hotel sink? Yes for light items like T-shirts and underwear, with a little soap and a good rinse. Hang them over the bath and they dry overnight in most climates, though thick jeans and jumpers need a real machine.
Packing well is a skill that pays off on every trip. A bag that is planned before you leave saves time at the hotel, avoids overweight fees at the airport, and leaves room for the things you bring home. Spend ten minutes with a plan and the whole trip feels calmer, from the first morning to the last evening.
This tool is free to use as often as you like. Bookmark it, run it before every trip, and let it carry the counting while you focus on the journey itself, the places you will see, and the people you will meet along the way.