My wife and I travel several times a year but usually our trips amount to 3-5 days at a time and so we always pack what we need for the trip, use the hotel's laundry bags for our dirty clothes and just pack them up and bring them back with us when we return. Now we are planning a trip where we will be gone about a week and I am not sure I want to pack a lot of clothing for the trip and then bring a suitcase full of dirty clothes back with me.
My question is simply, for those of you who do take longer trips, what is your strategy when it comes to laundry when travelling? Last hotel we stayed at in NYC charged $13/shirt for laundry and $25 per piece for dry cleaning so that would not be at all feaseable for us. Any advice from those with experience would be appreciated.

Many hotels also have a guest-laundry. For a few quarters you can use the machines, washers and dryers.
Use it at a dull moment or take a book....

It depends.

If you are going to a major city like NY, Paris, London, Boston, SF or other places with a high density of residential mixed in with the hotels, then there will likely be multiple wash/dry/fold laundries within a few blocks of your hotel which cost a fraction of what a hotel will charge you.

In places like beach towns, LA, Las Vegas, Florida resort areas and other places that lack a high density of local residents amidst the hotels you are out of luck.

I'd never do the hotel laundry routine unless I was on a major company expense account. There are often local laundromats where you can also leave your laundry and they'll do the work, wash, dry and fold. That's infinitely cheaper.

Many will suggest you wash things out in the sink and hang up to dry. Count me among those who don't like to live among laundry hanging up all over the place and who don't like wearing stiff underwear and socks that were air dried.

On the other hand, I'd never pay good money just for the privilege of bringing home clean clothes. I'll bring them home dirty and wash them there for "free".

I usually travel for 2-3 weeks at a time and come home with a suitcase full of dirty laundry, but I can't see doing laundry on my vacation.
I have managed over the years to pack everything in a 22" suitcase, I have to check it but it is small and easy to handle.

I once went on a 13-day trip across Europe. I went to the local Goodwill store and picked up T-shirts for 50 cents and threw them out as I travelled.

Regarding my "unmentionables" I took along those that were in very sorry shape and disposed of them as I went along also.

This way I lightened by load as I travelled and made room for a souvenier or two.

On another similar trip, I mailed home a box of dirty clothes from Switzerland.

We often wash smaller items like underwear, swimsuits, tshirts and shorts right in our room, either in the shower or the sink. Then we hang them to dry on the patio, shower-line, or around the room. Just bring some Woolite...even shampoo or soap works in a pinch.

For a week's vacation, I will just bring extra clothing, esspecially if I am travelling in the summer when clothing is lightweight. If I am travelling in the winter when clothing takes up a lot more space, I might do a load or two part way through the trip - usually in the hotel laundromat or a local one.

Traveling in the U.S.A. we can always find a wash-and-fold service, offered by laundromats with attendants. Just check the yellow pages and call around.

The drill is that you take clothes in early in the day and pick it up in the afternoon. The cost is usually about $1 a pound, with a minimum charge.

This service is much more difficult to find in Europe, South America, etc. However, it is sometimes available.

Traveling overseas, we go prepared to wash underclothes and socks, if necessary.

It depends on where I'm staying, how long I'm there and how busy I am. I've had the hotel wash items before, but it's not cheap. I've also rented condos or houses with washers & dryers in them - definitely the preferred way to go. And I've also brought my Woolite and done the bathroom sink thing.

However, unless I'm gone more than a week, I'm usually way too busy to care about washing anything. The way I look at it is usually no one knows me so I can get away with wearing the same clothes 2 or 3 times. (Unless they stink of course!) I always bring more than enough clean underwear though! I couldn't possibly ask the hotel to clean those.

We normally only pack for a couple days and do laundry half way through. I can always get small samples of laundry detergent and fabric softener from the internet and pack them so that isn't a cost or weight to consider. Most hotels have facilities for guests, so we just pick up a bottle of wine and have Happy Hour waiting for the clothes to get done.

I forgot to mention that most hotel rooms come with an iron and ironing board these days and, when these are not in a room they are usually available from housekeeping.

(I wrote this so people who never iron will have a chance to tell us about it.)

I usually don't want to spend vacation time doing laundry. Vacation time is too precious. However, when we ski, we stay in a condo, and I'll do laundry during the trip.

I usually send it out. In Europe, the stuff comes back looking better than it did when you bought it. In NYC you can usually either go one block in any direction from your hotel and find a laundry that will do it, or ask the concierge for the location of the closest one. You'd probably have to send it through the hotel in most other cities in the US. I don't want to spend time overseas looking for a washeteria so for me, it's worth the cost.

I've never understood the 'take ratty underwear and throw it away' as you go method of packing.

My underwear doesn't take up any space and can be rinsed out easily in the shower.

I'll rinse stuff out occaisionally but I don't do laundry unless I'm staying in a condo.

got to be careful on this one. I fully expected to do laundry at a laundromat in Stockholm, 1/2-way through a Scandinavian tour last summer, to find that there are like 2 only 2 laundromats in all of Stockholm. Go figure. Not convenient at all and when we happened upon family and friends and asked to borrow their laundry rooms, no one seemed to have a dryer that worked. The Swedes love to hang their things out to dry. Even with the long days of sun, we were never in one place long enough (4 of us, including two teen girls with lots of heavy jeans that don't dry easily) for all our clothes to dry well. Moral of the story: We overpacked, but I'm glad we did!

On our road trips, which average 14 days, we always hit a local laundramat at least once. It's a pain. But, unless it's very crowded, we can usually do two or three loads at once. So it really doesn't take that long. And there's no way we could fit all our luggage in the trunk if we tried to take enough to last that length of time without washing.

For a week, I bring all the clothes and don't do laundry. Longer than a week, we take it to a service and have it done, unless we're in a condo in the US and then we do it ourselves. I actually have found it easy to find places in Europe and latin america to get laundry done. They just aren't listed in guidebooks, but if you keep your eyes open when you walk around you will see places.

For a trip of 1 week, I simply wear each outfit a couple times and don't do laundry.

For a trip of 2-3 weeks, I either visit a self service laundry matt or wash a few things out in the sink.

Depending on the location, sometimes I use a drop off service (Mexico) where they wash, dry, and fold within 1 day service, and reasonably priced.