Friday Teardrop Photo

I received this photo from Gary Hardy, a teardrop trailer owner in Australia. During an outing to the Little Desert National Park in Victoria, Gary's wife nearly had to share the camp shower with a local emu. Gary was inspired by my teardrop trailer shower post and the couple now have their own nifty shower setup—complete with a prep table.

My Teardrop Trailer Shower

Many teardroppers feel that a camp shower is a luxury, but I think it's a necessity. After hiking or kayaking all day and then hanging around the smoky campfire, having a shower before bed helps me feel like a cleaner and happier camper. It also keeps our bed sheets clean during a trip.

Our teardrop trailer camp shower is nothing fancy. We have had more elaborate setups in the past—like solar showers hung from trees and poles made of rebar and conduit—but now our shower system is very simple and easy.

It consists of an inexpensive Gear Guide pop-up shower shelter without a floor. This particular shelter is no longer available on Amazon, but they do sell similar showers like this. Since the shower doesn't have a floor, we use a plastic drip pan for hot water tanks. This actually works better than a floor since we can pull it out to dump the water and dry it off. I built a wooden platform out of 2x2 pieces of redwood to either stand on or to put our shoes on. The pop-up shower, the platform and the stakes and guylines for the shower shelter all fit into a round bag that fits right into the drip pan. Towels can be hung from the sides of the shelter and we use a small camp table for soap, shampoo and clean clothes.

For the actual shower portion, we just heat up water in a small pot (just to lukewarm or warm) and then take it into the shower with a small cup. We use the cup to dump the water over our heads (most of it being caught by the drip pan) and then wash with biodegradable soap like Dr. Bronner's. It only takes about 5-6 cups of water to thoroughly wash our bodies and hair.  So essentially, this is more of a Navy shower. It feels fantastic and it's so amazing to shower in the cool, fresh air.

The shower takes about five minutes to set up and break down with minimal cleanup. However, I recently purchased a small tarp to put on the floor of the shower—just to keep leaves and bark out of the drip pan.

* Just a tip, before you head into the shower, be sure to have everything you need with you so you don't have to ask for any help.

Friday Teardrop Photo

Washing my hair while teardrop camping last weekend.

If we're not camping near a shower, I'll sometimes wash up in our dish pans. It seems gross, but I'm fastidious about washing out our pans after washing dishes and body parts. We use these versatile little containers to not only wash dishes, clothes and hair, but to hold dish cloths, pans and our garbage bags in the back of the galley.

If you are going to wash your hair in a dish pan while camping, it does help to have shorter hair.

Friday Teardrop Photo

The Sunflower and our pop-up shower shelter near Mammoth Lakes, California.

How do you shower?

One of the questions I get about teardrop camping is how we bathe or shower when our tiny trailer doesn't have a bathroom. Even though I love to camp and don't mind the dirt and grime that comes with it, I am extremely picky about keeping clean while camping. I have to have a nightly shower before going to bed and after a day of hiking, kayaking or exploring. My husband is totally the opposite, he thinks that you should stink while camping, so I have had to battle him when it comes to our individual camp shower needs.

Sometimes we will camp at a campground that has hot showers. These can be either free or fee showers. Campgrounds in drought prone states like California, Utah, Nevada and Arizona will charge a dollar or two for a 3-5 minute shower. States with plenty of water like Oregon and Washington usually have free hot showers.

When we are boondock camping we usually bring along a pop-up shower tent. The particular tent we have is simple and does not have a floor, so I purchased a plastic water heater tank catch pan to use as a floor. I also built a small platform out of 2x2 redwood to stand on while bathing.

Our first few attempts at using a solar camp shower failed miserably because either the water would not heat up in time to take a hot shower or it cooled off too fast at night. The typical solar showers are also really heavy when filled up and nearly impossible to lift over your head to a branch or a hook on a car roof rack so you can take a shower. However, my camping girlfriend and I have come up with our own solution. We just heat up a small pot of water on the fire or the stove, grab a cup and take it into the shower tent. We then just dip the cup into the pot and dump the warm water over our heads. It feels fantastic and we have more control over how much water gets used, which is necessary when camping in a place with limited water.

Another solution (but not available in all areas) is to utilize local hot springs. We camp quite a bit in the Eastern Sierras which has hot springs dotted all around the area. We lounge around in a hot spring for an hour or so and then wash off with some soap and a bottle of water. Also, if you don't mind a cold bath in the middle of the summer, you can always jump into a lake or river to wash off, just be sure to use biodegradable soap and shampoo.