How do van lifers stay clean? This is the honest answer from four years of full-time van life in Europe – covering van showers, campsite showers, periods and laundry. Written from a woman’s perspective, useful regardless of gender, and specifically about van life in Europe, where there are no gym chains and no Planet Fitness.
TL;TR
- Van lifers shower as often as their setup and preference allow – anywhere from daily to not at all.
- Between showers: a cloth wash with warm water and soap takes five minutes and covers everything
- Laundry at a launderette once a month, roughly €25 to €30 for a full load – the only real solution is owning enough clothes to stretch that long
- Periods, skincare, and toilet logistics are all manageable; the honest answers are below
How do you stay clean in a van? It’s the question I get most, usually delivered with a slightly horrified look. Four years in, and the honest answer is simple – just like everyone else. The routine looks different and takes a bit more planning.
The biggest difference is whether you’re a city van lifer or a nature van lifer. In a city, gym memberships, climbing centres and public pools are everywhere, and your hygiene routine looks almost identical to life in a house. If, like us, you spend most of your time in the mountains, that’s out of the window.
Most of this post is for the second group. This is my routine after four years on the road, mixed with the most common questions I get asked or see online.
How often do van lifers shower?
As often as they feel they need to. Asking how often van lifers shower is a bit like asking how often people shower in a three-bedroom semi. Some people shower twice a day. Some every few days. The van does not change that instinct. What it changes is how much planning goes into making it happen.
If daily showers are non-negotiable for you, they are possible. You either build a van with a large water tank, or you plan your parking around water points, or you get a gym membership if you are in a city.
If you are spending most of your time in nature, as we do, the rhythm looks more like this: in summer, we shower two or three times a week, sometimes more if we have been climbing hard. In winter, closer to once a week. We do not track it. The question we ask is whether sweat, mud, or effort has crossed the threshold for a shower, or whether a sink wash handles it. Usually, the sink handles it.
I have met van lifers who genuinely prefer wild swimming to showers and will go weeks without a conventional wash. I have met others who park near a water point specifically to shower daily and refuse to compromise on it. Four years in, I can say with confidence that neither is more or less “van life.” It is entirely personal, exactly as it is in a house, just with a bit more intentionality about the logistics.
Showering in a van
We have a built-in shower, with a 120-litre water tank and a small boiler. The tank lasts us roughly 10 days. That includes a shower each for Tomas and me, washing up, and water for the dogs.
Day to day, we use our shower cubicle as a storage for our drinking water, so every shower day starts with moving things around before the shower can begin. Our boiler is small enough for one person at a time, so if Tomas showers after me, he’s waiting about 30 minutes for the next round to heat up.
The shower itself is military style. Water on to get wet, water off while you soap and shampoo, water back on to rinse. In winter, the gap between turning the water off and on again is genuinely unpleasant. Even with the heating on, you get cold. In summer, we mostly skip the boiler and have cold showers, which are unpleasant for about 10 seconds and then fine.
We use Park4Night to find water points – more on the apps we use here.
Between showers
The thing nobody in a house ever has to think about is what you do on the days you can’t shower. The base routine is a cloth wash – heat some water on the hob, put it in a bowl with a tiny bit of soap, wet a flannel, wash from the face down, change the water for a clean rinse. Five minutes in and you’re as good as new.
For days when we really need to save water, we use water-based wet wipes. They’re enough to get you into bed feeling clean.
I wash my hair once a week. Dry shampoo carries the days in between. One thing I just have to say because it keeps coming up: you can’t wash your hair in a river or a lake, no matter how natural the shampoo on the bottle says it is. It still contains things that don’t belong in those ecosystems.
Shaving
I bought an IPL device a few months before we left the UK, and it’s one of the best pre-van-life purchases I made. After consistent use, I can go 7–10 days between shaving. If IPL isn’t for you, the common alternative is a small electric body shaver. It works dry, doesn’t cut, and doesn’t need water.
If your van doesn’t have a built-in shower.
If your van doesn’t have a built-in shower
Plenty of long-term van lifers don’t have one. The combinations Reddit and our friends use most:
- A solar shower bag – a black 10–20 litre bag you fill, leave in the sun for a few hours, hang from the back of the van. Best with a pop-up shower tent for privacy.
- A 12V USB pump shower in a 5–10 litre bucket. Cheap and packable. Better in summer, harder to enjoy in February.
- Sports centres and municipal pools – the most underused option in Europe. Every town has one. Usually 3–6 euros, unlimited hot water, and nobody minds whether you swim or just rinse.
- Beach showers – only during the season.
It really is country and season-dependent
Summer in Spain or Portugal is a completely different routine from Summer in the Alps. In the south, beach showers are everywhere, water points are abundant, the rivers and lakes are warm enough for daily swims, and the van shower becomes almost irrelevant. In the Alps, even in the Summer, the boiler shower comes back, the cloth-washing days are more frequent, and we ration water more carefully because every fill matters.
Wild swimming is a bigger part of our summer hygiene than most people would guess. It’s also one of the best parts of van life, and I’d do it regardless.
If you want to see our setup – the shower, the boiler, and the van, I did a full van tour on YouTube!
The toilet situation
We have a chemical cassette toilet (Cassette c250 Thetford) that came with the van. How we use it depends on where we are. If we’re near emptying facilities, we use it every day. If we’re in a remote spot and want to stay there longer, we either avoid using it or keep it to a minimum.
For two people, the cassette fills quickly. With full use, it needs emptying every three to four days. That doesn’t work if you’re staying off-grid for longer periods.
The most practical solution is pee jars. Not glamorous, but it’s what lets us stay in one place without needing to move every few days.
Does it smell?
If you use the right fluid, no. We use Thetford Aqua Kem Blue, and the toilet doesn’t smell, even when you’re emptying it. The smell people complain about online is almost always one of two things: skipping the fluid altogether, or using the wrong one. We’ve watched people empty fluid-free cassettes at dump stations, and the whole parking area knows about it. It’s not a pleasant experience for anyone nearby.
Drinking water near the dump stations – the rule we live by
If a drinking water tap is close to a toilet rinse point, we don’t use it. We buy bottled water instead. The signs usually say not to mix the two, and people ignore them all the time. I’ve seen cassettes rinsed directly under drinking water taps more times than I can count. This is the one thing I’ll forever complain about. There are always some assholes who will ruin it for the rest of us.
If you don’t have a cassette toilet
Some people use composting toilets, which separate liquid and solid waste and vent outside. Others use a simple bucket setup with bags and sawdust. There are also people with no toilet at all. They either try to park near public toilets or follow basic outdoor etiquette – find a spot well away from water and trails, dig a small hole, and bury waste properly. If you go this route, follow Leave No Trace and pack out your TP.
How do you manage periods on the road?
I switched to a menstrual cup before we left the UK for vanlife, and it’s the best decision I made for this part of life on the road. No waste and easy to clean with minimal water.
I keep period underwear as backup. The downside is that hand-washing uses water I’d rather save, so I only use them when needed and keep enough pairs to last until laundry day.
Skincare on the road and managing rosacea
I never had a skincare routine before van life. It took being diagnosed with rosacea on the road to start one, which is not the order most people do things, but here we are.
The routine is minimal by necessity – rosacea reacts badly to any fragrance, so most of what’s on the shelf in the nearest shop isn’t an option for me. I use a fragrance-free face wash, a moisturiser, exfoliate twice a week, and SPF every day. I use SPF 50 in summer, SPF 30 in winter. I see a dermatologist once or twice a year. If you’ve never been to one, go – they’ll tell you things no skincare blog ever will.
I also manage Polymorphic Light Eruption, a sun allergy on my hands and chest that’s been getting worse year on year. Managing it on the road means a specific SPF50, daily protective pills in summer, and physically covering my hands and chest in strong sun. It’s one of the reasons we spend summers in the Alps instead of further south. That, and the lack of air conditioning.
I don’t see other van lifers talk about sun-sensitivity conditions much, which is the only reason I’m flagging it. If you have something similar and you’re wondering whether van life in Europe will work, it does. It just needs a bit more thought than a regular SPF and hope.
How do you do laundry in a van?
Laundry is easily my least favourite part of van life. We do it about once a month at a launderette. Three machines at once, around 25 to 30 euros, and it takes most of the morning. There’s no trick that makes it enjoyable. The only real solution is owning enough clothes to stretch that long. Socks, underwear and base layers matter most. If something needs washing mid-month, I wait until we’re near water, wash it by hand, and in summer, it dries within a few hours.
How we keep our dogs clean
Two big dogs in a small van means more sand, more mud and more wet-dog smell. The routine that works for us:
- Dog wipes – we keep a pack by the door for paws or body after muddy walks.
- Mudbuster – the portable water jar with a brush head. We used this before vanlife, so this is just a generally great thing and the best buy we’ve made for the dogs. Muddy paws get rinsed before they come back into the van.
- Dog shampoo – when needed, usually at campsites with hose access.
- Wild swimming – does most of the cleaning work in summer. They love it, we don’t have to think about it.
- Tooth brushing – we brush their teeth too, the same way you would at home.
- Town dog-wash stations – this is the underrated one. Plenty of European towns have coin-operated dog wash stations, especially in Spain, Italy and France. You insert a few euros, get warm water, shampoo and a dryer. Worth €5–€8 to come out with two clean, dry dogs in 15 minutes.
- Some campsites have dedicated dog-washing areas – ask at reception, they don’t always advertise it.
Did this help? Come tell me on Instagram 😊
FAQ
How do van lifers stay clean without a shower?
Not all vans have a built-in shower, and plenty of van lifers manage fine without one. The most common solution is a solar shower bag – fill it with water, leave it in the sun for a few hours, hang it from the van or a tree, and shower outside. It works well in summer in southern Europe, where the sun is reliable. Others rely on a combination of cloth washes, baby wipes, campsite showers, and wild swimming. The approach depends on the season, the country, and how remote you’re parking.
How do you manage your period living in a van?
A menstrual cup is the most practical option for van life – no waste, easy to clean with minimal water, and no dependency on finding shops mid-trip. Menstrual underwear works as a backup but is awkward to hand-wash when the water supply is so limited.
How do van lifers do laundry in Europe?
Launderettes. Prices vary by country, but we spend around 30 euros per session – three washing machines and plenty of dryer time. We do it once a month. In summer, if we’re parked near a water supply, we’ll hand-wash a few light things and hang them outside to dry. That’s as close to a laundry hack as van life gets.
Does van life location affect your hygiene routine?
Significantly. City-based van life and remote van life are almost completely different lifestyles. If you’re mainly in cities, you can get a gym membership, use climbing gyms, and find facilities easily – we shower at climbing gyms ourselves occasionally. But 95% of our time is spent remotely, which means different solutions entirely.
Do van lifers have toilets?
Some do, many don’t. We have a chemical toilet, which we use for solid waste, and a pee jar for everything else. The combination means we can stay remote for as long as we need without depending on finding facilities. If you’re planning serious remote van life, a toilet is worth the investment.
Is van life hygienic?
Yes, as hygienic as you make it. The routine looks different from a house. You do shower less frequently. You just need to manage your waste responsibly and keep the van aired out.
How do van lifers deal with body odour?
The same way everyone else does – deodorant, washing regularly, and wearing breathable fabrics. The cloth wash method between showers covers most of it. Staying on top of ventilation in the van – opening windows every morning does the job.
Does dental hygiene change in van life?
Not really. This is one of the areas of hygiene that stays completely normal regardless of where you are – whether we were car camping, in a tent, or in the van, teeth brushing has always been the same.
How often do van lifers shower?
It varies entirely by person, van setup, and location. Full answer in the showering section above.
Leave a Reply