How To Keep Your Clothes Smelling Fresh When Traveling

Banish the smelly suitcase! Use these simple and effective ways to keep your clothes and suitcase smelling fresh while traveling.

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The smelly suitcase: something all travelers dread and most have experienced.

The very thought of it makes me cringe!

No matter where you are in the world, you want to get ready each day and feel confident that your clothes smell fresh. At least I know I do!

In the past I suffered through the stink. That’s until one day I decided I couldn’t put up with it anymore.

My frustration and irritation pushed me to find these simple solutions to keep my clothes and my suitcase smelling fresh day after day while I traveled the globe.

What Causes A Smelly Suitcase?

To find a solution I needed to start with finding the cause of a smelly suitcase. It didn’t take much investigating to find the cause. The key offenders I identified were – not surprisingly – the already dirty items inside it, namely shoes and dirty clothing.

From there it mades sense that to keep the dirty items from spreading their less-than-fresh scent throughout the tight quarters of the suitcase, they would need to be contained.

Related: How To Wash Clothes While Traveling

My Favorite Ways To Reduce Odors In My Luggage:

Travel Laundry Bag

I love to explore destinations by walking as much as I can. It helps me feel connected to each place, and unfortunately, also makes my clothing smell like the outdoors.

To contain the smell of dirty clothes, I found a super lightweight and compact travel laundry bag. When not being used it folds down and weights almost nothing. It has a simple drawstring closure to keep everything neatly inside.

As soon as I take off something I put it directly into my laundry bag to make sure any scents on the clothing stay contained.

Once I have a few items in my dirty laundry that I need washed, I can use my laundry detergent sheets to hand wash items in a sink or tub and hang them to dry. Otherwise, if a hotel offers laundry service I can send them off to be washed and delivered back to me.

Related: How To Not Let The Rain Ruin Your Vacation

Travel Shoe Bags

One of the simplest and most obvious ways to keep things clean in a suitcase is to use travel shoe bags!

If you aren’t using them, you should be. Considering how dirty our shoes are, we should not be putting them directly into our suitcases and spreading the muck onto our clothing.

These zippered shoe bags are large enough for me to fit two pairs of ankle boots, or three pairs of sandals in each. My travel companion has mens size 15 shoes and can fit his pairs inside with ease as well! When you aren’t using them they fold away to almost nothing to be stored and are super lightweight.

Related: How To Protect Yourself From Pickpockets When Traveling

Charcoal Odor Absorbers

Another simple way to combat a smelly suitcase is with some travel size charcoal odor absorbers.

All you have to do is toss these natural and nontoxic odor absorbers into your luggage. They are light and take up almost no space but are powerful at absorbing moisture and deodorizing.

They are a nice second line of defense against odors that could enter your luggage from flying or other modes of travel.

As a side note: I have noticed that traveling with a hardside suitcase instead of a fabric suitcase also helps to reduce odors from travel. Once I switched to the hardside suitcase, I would no longer immediately have a musty smell to my clothing after arriving at my destination.

Conclusion

My hope is that you will never have to suffer with a smelly suitcase again! A few small changes in the way you pack can truly make a BIG difference in keeping all your clothing smelling great. I love that all of these are relatively simple and inexpensive while also being extremely effective. A win all around!

Have you ever suffered from a smelly suitcase during travel? What solutions have you tried or do you plan to try? Let me know in the comments below!

My Travel Must-haves: