An embarrassing moment highlights the trouble with laundry on the road

On a multi-week solo road trip in Ireland, my itinerary is a new hotel each night, with late arrivals and early departures.

Two thirds through, I find myself running short on smalls, and so I do some handwashing in my bathroom sink and use the hire car as a drying cupboard, strewing the back seat and the dashboard with garments so they would catch the sun and the flow of the aircon.

Getting your washing dry on the road can be challenging.Credit: Alamy

I’m too busy congratulating myself for my genius practicality to realise the flaw in my plan. I pull into Mac Ivor’s Cider at Craigavon in Northern Ireland for a cellar door visit and tasting.

After parking, I’m muddling around, collecting things into my bag, when the owner of the apple orchard and brewery appears at the driver’s side window to greet me. I have not clocked his approach, and so, have not cleared the dashboard of undergarments.

“Hello!” he says cheerily, then his eyes dart to the dash. There is a moment in which we both silently acknowledge the awkwardness.

After that painful pause, he, bless his (most likely clean) cotton socks, carries on cheerily as if nothing is awry.

Credit: Jamie Brown

But the embarrassing moment has stayed with me. I’d do the dashboard-dry again, though, if circumstances demanded it. You see, if cleanliness is next to godliness, then I am some kind of travel goddess, because I am an obsessive washer of smalls on the road.

It’s not like I don’t have enough. I do the undies maths before I leave as part of a wider packing plan. On this day, I’ll wear this, on this evening, I’ll wear that. That outfit requires that bra and undies, this requires those socks.

And that is why the fear of being caught out without clean socks and jocks is an inexplicably primal phobia, perhaps born of the adage passed on by my grandmother (I guess) that goes something like: “Always wear clean underwear; you might get in an accident and end up in ER, where your dirty secret will be revealed”.

And so, despite a plenty of pants in my suitcase, it is never long after check-in that I’m scoping the hotel bathroom for supplied shampoo or body wash with which to lather up those that have already been deployed.

The washing is the easy part. The drying requires real strategy.

Hanging things on a balcony is probably the most fail-safe drying method, unless you’re in a high-rise and it is too windy to even consider draping items unsecured over chairs and tables or, heaven forbid, over the balcony railing.

Balconies are particularly tricky on a cruise ship – though I have dried things successfully several times and not lost a garment yet. (I’m an expert, after all.)

Air- conditioning vents are good for drying clothes in hotel rooms.Credit: Getty

Proximity to an active air-conditioning vent is another tried and true system. Those coat hangers with clips are the best – you just need to find somewhere from which to hang them outside the wardrobe.

On a recent hotel visit I was delighted to find shelving in the room, just ripe for hanging things off.

I was only there two nights – but I was heading off to Samoa for a week immediately from there and wanted the pack to be as pristine as possible. Job done.

But anyone who’s ever hand laundered any kind of clothing in a hotel room – and that’s most travellers, surely – will know that it’s the drying that can bring you undone. When check-out time comes around and those bits and bobs are still damp, or wet even, what do you do?

Sure, you could use the hair dryer. But if you’ve got a hire car, of course you must use it as a drying cupboard. Just be on the lookout for friendly cider brewers.