Most of the marinas we stay in have some kind of laundry room. The machines vary in age, quality and expense to use. St Joseph Marina on Lake Michigan had free laundry! In some places it can cost as much as five dollars a load for washing and drying.

There are two schools of thought on doing one's laundry in a public facility. The first is to get your laundry started and while it's going, go on to other tasks like grocery shopping, dog walking, or food prep, thus making the best use of your time. The second is to stay with your laundry until it is done.

I subscribe to the second and here's why. Many things can happen while you are away from your laundry. An unbalanced load can bring the wash process to a screeching halt and there it sits waiting until you attend to it. During the drying process, someone might accidentally open your dryer and forget to turn it back on. Again, there it sits, waiting for attention, soaking wet and delaying the completion of the laundry project. As you can imagine, many other things can also happen to your laundry while you are away. You may as well get a good book and stay right there where you can keep an eye on it to make the shortest work out of laundry day.

Those of you who know me, know that my personal mantra is "anything worth doing, is worth having FUN doing." This includes laundry. Doing the laundry means I get to use one of my favorite pieces of gear, the collapsible laundry basket. Here is a little video to show you how it works: video. I recommend the collapsible laundry basket not only to cruisers, but also for campers, kids' sports camps and even to persuade a teenager to transport their clean laundry from the laundry room to their bedroom.