Scrubba: Initial Review

The pilgrim routine at the end of the walking day is largely unchanging. Check into your albergue. Take a shower. Wash your clothes – almost always by hand, but every now and again by machine. Journal if you’ve got ’em. Explore the village/town/city neighbourhood. Dinner. Somewhere in there, usually all in there, is socialization with other pilgrims.

Honestly, if there’s one item on that list I sometimes skip, it’s laundry. I carry enough extra socks and underwear that I can get away with washing every other day if I have to. And, for me at least, handwashing rarely results in clean clothes. Cleaner, certainly. But not entirely clean.

Ever on the lookout for cleaner clothes, I’m testing something called the Scrubba.

This is effectively a large dry bag with a little window and an internal washboard. The whole thing weighs about 150 g, not including any soap you want to bring.

I tested it out for the first time yesterday.

Operation is simple – depending on how many clothes you’re washing, fill the bag with water up to a certain line, add your clothes and soap, seal the dry bag, and give it a couple of shakes so everything’s wet.

Then you can literally scrub your clothes inside the bag, giving it a good shake every now and again.

When you’re done with that, pour out the (very dirty) water and add some clean water for a shake and rinse, and you’re done.

The whole thing took me maybe five minutes.

I hung up my clothes to dry, and this morning I put them on and hiked in them.

Are they clean? Well, they certainly feel cleaner than if I had done my usual handwashing, so that’s already a win. The fact that it only took me five minutes from start to finish, combined with the very appealing idea of not standing in line (or holding up the line) at a cramped hand-washing station, means that the Scrubba is definitely entering my Camino kit for the spring.

Of course, it does add one more thing to dry on the line, so I’ll have to remember to pack an extra clip for that.

Only time will tell if it is as sturdy as it appears, and I will give a full review after my Camino.