Life on wheels

My mom doesn’t like it when I don’t wash my hair. More precisely, according to her etiquette, it is unacceptable to tie my hair into a bun when it’s evident that it hasn’t been freshly washed and then go out like that. Recently, she reacted to my joke about the “friends I have in my head” – an expression I humorously use very often to justify my craziness – by calling me with a concerned question during one of my adventures, asking if I had got lice in my hair.

My mom is not the only person in the world who has a mistaken perception of personal hygiene in a camper. Many people, even before they wonder where we brush our teeth and how often we shower, simply assume that we skip these routines daily. In fact, the reality could even surprise you, because I personally believe that the process of personal hygiene is somewhat simpler on such journeys than during life in a traditional apartment or house – I’ll explain why.

The space considered a bathroom in a traditional home is closer to you in a vehicle than it could be in any residential building. Wake up in the morning, take two steps, and voilà – you’ve reached the bathroom. Without any problems, you can do everything you would do in a five-star hotel’s restroom. Of course, there are campers without bathrooms; however, from my own experience, I can attest that bottled water is equally effective as the one from the tap.

On the other hand, my mom knows that in most cases during our travels, we prefer to stay in a camp resort. The biggest difference between the bathrooms in such organized spaces and the bathrooms most of us grew up with is the fact that they are communal. Although, upon reflection, since my family of six shared a single toilet my whole life, I can’t say I encountered this principle for the first time in a camper’s communal bathroom. After using any element in whoevers bathroom, my mom taught me from a young age to leave it in good order, a habit that is more than useful when you are on the road. More people trying to clean their bodies simultaneously in one room is nothing new in my life. However, not having to wait for someone to finish their doings in the bathroom because the camp resort’s bathroom, unlike the one at home, has a large number of toilet bowls, is a positive novelty.

As always, I fully understand people who don’t like encountering a crowd of unfamiliar faces when brushing their teeth in the morning. However, I would also like my mom to at least try to understand that even among them, there are a significant number of people who don’t wash their hair, brush their teeth, or shower every day. The place of residence doesn’t change someone’s life preferences and habits, which are, in the end, their own business, so I believe there’s no need to interfere too much in them.