Travelling and the Hotel Bathroom

A man reveals his true domestic character not in his own home, where habit and familiarity impose a kind of order, but in a hotel room at seven in the morning when his flight departs at nine and he cannot find his toothbrush.

Travel disrupts routine. This is its nature; it would not be travel otherwise. But the disruption of routine is not a licence to abandon it, and the hotel bathroom, with its unfamiliar layout and peculiar plumbing, is where this principle is tested most directly.

Begin with the washbag. Not a plastic carrier bag containing four sample bottles from the last hotel you visited, a cracked bar of soap, and a razor of uncertain age. A proper washbag: leather or heavy canvas, with a shape it holds when empty, large enough to contain your necessities and structured enough that you can find them without excavation. Pack it once, keep it packed, replenish it when items run low. The washbag should be ready before you are, because the night before departure is not the time to discover that your toothpaste expired in January.

What to carry: your own razor (the disposable horrors left by hotels are instruments of minor violence); your own toothbrush; toothpaste; a face wash or soap you know and trust; deodorant; a small comb; and any prescription items you require. If you use a particular shampoo or body wash, decant it into a travel bottle. Hotel products are adequate in an emergency, but “adequate in an emergency” is not a philosophy upon which to build your grooming.

On arrival: take five minutes to arrange your things. Place the washbag on the counter or shelf. Set out what you will need in the morning. Hang your towel where it will dry. This small act of organisation, which costs you almost nothing, transforms the hotel bathroom from foreign territory into a workable space. You are not moving in. You are establishing a temporary outpost of order in an unfamiliar place, and that outpost will serve you every morning and evening of your stay.

On the bathroom itself: you did not clean it and you are not required to scrub it, but you are required to leave it in a condition that does not constitute an insult to the person who must clean it after you. Wipe the counter after you shave. Hang your towels rather than abandoning them on the floor in a wet heap. Do not leave hair in the drain if you can help it. Place used toiletries in the bin rather than on every available surface.

The chambermaid is not your servant. She is a professional performing a task that most guests make harder than it needs to be, and the small courtesy of leaving a bathroom in reasonable order is not generosity; it is basic decency. If you were raised to believe that someone else will always clean up after you, travel is an excellent opportunity to correct that belief.

On adapting: the shower will be unfamiliar. The water pressure may be feeble or startlingly forceful. The temperature controls may operate on principles known only to the plumber who installed them. Do not complain. Adjust. The capacity to maintain your standards in imperfect conditions is not stubbornness; it is competence, and competence is portable.

You will sleep in strange beds, eat at unreliable hours, and navigate cities whose logic escapes you. These things are beyond your control. The bathroom routine is not. It is the one fixed point in the revolving disorder of travel, and the man who keeps it intact will find that everything else, the packing and the airports and the unfamiliar streets, becomes considerably more manageable.