For as long as people have been travelling, camping, and backpacking, we’ve struggled to find just the right balance between over-packing, and not bringing enough of the essentials along with us while on the road. This becomes a precarious balancing act, especially when our travel plans are likely to include physically active adventures that will inevitably result in soiled, stinky clothes. Is it better to play it safe by packing multiple clothing options so as to not risk offending the olfactory sense of traveling companions? Or should we take the minimalist approach and hope to find a sink (or better yet, a washing machine) in order to clean our clothes before they start to stand up on their own? Neither choice is without a significant amount of risk and compromise, even for the most experienced travelers. But thankfully, there is now a third – and much more attractive – option for adventurers the world over to consider.
The Scrubba Wash Bag ($55) by Calibre8 is one of those amazingly simple ideas that’s all the more brilliant because it actually works! The bag itself is made out of a lightweight material not unlike the fabric in a trusted windbreaker. It weighs less than 5oz and can pack down small enough to fit into a pocket, thereby eliminating just about any excuses you might have for not carrying it with you on your travels.
Once clothes begin to get a little ripe, drop them in the Scrubba with a little water and soap, and push the air out of the valve to begin washing. Little nubs inside the bag act like an old-fashioned washboard, helping to clean and freshen clothes with just a little elbow grease. When you’re finished, simply dump out the dirty water, rinse the clean clothes in fresh water, and head out to the next stage of your journey. It really is just that easy.
And if having clean clothes while travelling isn’t enough of an incentive for carrying the Wash Bag with you on your travels, here’s one more. Calibre8 isn’t just interested in helping people keep their clothes clean, the company also to help people living in underdeveloped countries to have clean drinking water too. To that end, proceeds from the sale of each Scrubba Wash Bag have helped Calibre8 contribute more than $25,000 to charity:water’s efforts to provide safe drinking water to communities in Ethiopia and Bangladesh.
Somehow that realization just makes those clean clothes smell even fresher.
