When traveling for multiple weeks, whether for business or pleasure, I hand-wash items in my hotel sink. Lingerie, socks, workout clothes, under-jacket camisoles …. Just about anything that's washable might get washed so I can have fresh clothes to wear again. This keeps my packing down to a minimum and I don't get an enormous dry cleaning bill at the end of my stay.

I use the sink in my hotel room to do this hand-washing and it usually works quite well. I've heard of people using the hotel coffee pot to do their hand-washing of lingerie items, but that is totally disgusting! I drink coffee! But I actually had that very thought today to use the pot. Why?

Because the sink had no way to hold the water. The stopper was missing!

Yes, I could ask the hotel to fix this but today is Sunday. I learned last Sunday in this same hotel when I had a burned out light bulb that the maintenance crew is off for the weekend.

So … I had no sink stopper and I wasn not going to revert to the coffee pot (actually, it's a large pot for heating up hot water as I am in Europe) and there is no ice bucket in the room either (little plastic trays are available at the ice machine). My room only has a shower, so using a bathtub isn't an option either. Hmmm, what to do?

Ah ha! I did do some shopping this week and have plastic shopping bags. This should work!

I filled up a shopping bag with warm water and laundry soap (hotel shower gel or shampoo works ok too), added my washables and voila! A mini wash-machine!

This worked great! I sloshed my clothes around to give them a decent wash, drained the "wash machine," then rinsed and hung everything. If I hadn't had the shopping bag, the plastic dry cleaner bag would have also worked.

Keep this in mind if you ever need to hand wash a few items and the sink stopper isn't holding the water.


Wishing you safe and enjoyable travels!

Carol Margolis of Smart Women Travelers
Author of
Business Travel Success...How to Reduce Stress, Be More Productive and Travel With Confidence!