How to do laundry in Spain as a tourist

Traveling with a toddler means lots of laundry. Partially because Don Loco goes through a lot of clothing, partially because we pack light. Here are my notes on how to do laundry in Spain as a tourist.:

1. Self-service laundromat in Madrid. I paid 4 euros for a wash and 3 euros for a dry. My clothes got completely dry with one dryer cycle. The machine dispensed its own soap and suavisante, which was great so I didn't have to go buy a giant bottle of soap.*  Also, no need to scrounge for change to put in the washing machine--it was all done with an app which even told me when the machine was done and which machines were available.

2. Tintoría in Sevilla. I paid 18 euros for one large bag (12 kilos?) of laundry. They washed, dried, ironed, and folded my clothes in 24 hours. They would have picked it up and dropped it off for an additional 5 euros. 

3. Laundry machine in an Airbnb. I washed and dried the clothing on the line, and had to provide my own laundry soap and figure out the front-loading laundry machine which is quite different from the top-loading machine in the US.

It is quite common to have a laundry machine in your rental apartment in Spain. So common, in fact, that self-service laundromats were practically non-existent 20 years ago when I first started coming to Spain. In the US, by contrast, depending on the city, it's not common to have your own laundry machine in your apartment. Some buildings have shared laundry facilities (the laundry room) and you pay for each wash and dry, e.g. 1.25 to wash and 1.25 to dry (usually takes two cycles to dry)

 

I guess I like blue clothing?

Note: Clothes dryers use a ton of electricity, and in the summer, line drying probably works just as fast in the arid parts of Spain. But in the winter, line drying really doesn't work. Clothes take forever to dry and even then, aren't really dry, and so many places in southern Spain don't have centralized heating, so it's the worst. So, some enterprising businesspeople started putting self-service dryers all over Spain (along with washers for the tourists) and voila! No more clammy winter clothes.

*In US laundromats, clothes never dry in one cycle, so I was impressed. I've never found an American laundromat where you didn't have to bring your own soap or buy tiny quantities at outrageous prices from a vending machine.