Tips for Travel Clothing Care

The spring is popular for travel for a reason. None of the hot destinations are too hot yet and a few of the cooler ones have taken the edge off of their windchill. Often, you also get to avoid some of the crowds by traveling a little before peak season and, as an added bonus, can find great deals. And while there are many helpful packing lists out there to help guide the “to carry-on or not to carry-on” question, we’re more interested in what happens after your only clean shirt receives a nice helping of that marinara sauce.

How to care for your clothing when you travel

Separate clean from dirty

Dirty laundry isn’t anyone’s favourite topic, but we’re okay with being the ones to broach the subject: when you travel, you’re going to have dirty laundry. One of the worst things you can do is let your items that need cleaning hang out with your fresh clothing. We recommend bringing a nice light laundry bag so that you can separate your never-been-worn items from that wine stained button up you wore to dinner last night. It won’t take up any more room and then when you get home, you’ll have your laundry all ready to go.

Spot clean minor marks

For some reason, traveling tends to act like a magnet for stains. Maybe it’s because we’re out of our routine or perhaps because we’re distracted by the excitement, but we find that the biggest challenge with packing light isn’t fashion variety; it’s sheer cleanliness. Check your clothing care tags and if you have the go ahead to hand wash, take care of minor stains as soon as possible.

Use your hotel’s cleaning service if you need it

If you’ve really done a number on one of your favourite garments, it might be worth it to have your item cleaned while you’re away. Even if you’ve packed enough clothing for you to tuck the stained item away for the rest of the trip, if you’re gone for more than a weekend, you’ll need to deal with it to ensure that the stain can come out. For anyone visiting Toronto, we can help clean your travel clothing!

Schedule your post-travel dry cleaning pick up

Even though the last thing on your mind when you’re heading out on a trip is what will happen when you return home, you’ll be glad someone is coming to get your clothing when you arrive exhausted and not wanting to go anywhere near your machine. Schedule Parkers Custom Clothing Care to come and pick up your clothing (dry cleaning or wet cleaning) at no additional charge.