Travelling with Cloth Nappies: What to Pack and How It Works

Travelling with cloth nappies feels like it should be complicated, no washing machine, unfamiliar bathrooms, a schedule that isn't your own. In practice, it's far more manageable than people expect, especially once you decide what kind of trip this is going to be.

You don't have to be all or nothing

This is the biggest mental shift that makes travelling easier. Plenty of cloth families switch to disposables for the duration of a trip and pick cloth back up the moment they're home, and that's a completely valid choice, not a failure of commitment. Others do a hybrid approach, cloth during the day at the accommodation, disposables for travel days or long car trips where laundry access is uncertain.

If you're keeping cloth going

Wet bags are what make this genuinely workable away from home. Every soiled nappy goes straight into one, exactly as it would at home, no different routine required. Pack more wet bags than you think you'll need, since they also double as a place for anything else that needs containing on the go.

If your accommodation has laundry access, even a shared laundry at an apartment or caravan park, a normal wash routine or at least a pre-wash is usually possible with a bit of planning around timing. If it doesn't, packing enough nappies to get through to your next laundry opportunity, plus a few extra, removes the pressure entirely.

Flights specifically

For flights, most families find it easiest to bring enough nappies for the duration of travel itself and use wet bags to store any soiled ones until landing, rather than trying to manage anything mid air. Airport bathrooms and plane bathrooms aren't set up for rinsing nappies, so this is one place where simplifying the routine for a day makes sense regardless of how committed you are to cloth otherwise.

Warmer weather trips

If your travel involves pool time or the beach, our reusable swim nappies pack down small and dry quickly, which makes them easy to bring along without adding much to your luggage.

The main thing to remember

However you choose to handle travel, cloth or disposable or somewhere in between, it doesn't undo the routine you've built at home. You'll be back to your normal wash routine the moment you're back, and one trip's worth of adjustment doesn't reset anything.