Laundry while travelling in Japan
One thing I love about travelling in Japan is how cheap and easy it is to wash your clothes while on the move. It means you can travel light, and if you're doing exercise such as running on your trip you don't have to worry about smelly sports clothes.
A trolley in front of a row of washers in a Japanese coin laundry. Photo by Muhammad Irfan on Unsplash.
Coin Laundry
Laundromats are very common even in small towns, and inexpensive. Just search Google Maps for Coin Laundry (コインランドリー).
Usually there are a mix of washer/driers combos, just washing machines, just dryers, and sometimes special sneaker washers & dryers.
If you can find the website for the laundry they often show you which machines are currently in use or free so you know how busy it is before going.
Public baths (Sentō) sometimes have a coin laundry so you can bathe yourself and relax while waiting for the machine to finish.
How to Pay
In modern coin laundries you usually pay by IC Card or a smart card which can be purchased and topped up at a small machine near the entrance.
Older coin laundries are usually cash-only so bring ¥100 coins, they don't all have change machines.
How to Use
Modern machines dispense detergent automatically and cold washes are the norm so you don't need to do anything other than pick how long a cycle you want, and the buttons usually have English.
Sometimes in older coin laundries (the ones where you actually use ¥100 coins) detergent needs to be purchased separately in single serving packs from a vending machine. Older machines rarely have any English, and there may not be translated manuals provided either, so point your favourite translation app camera at the machine to decipher the buttons!
The dryers might be more gentle than what you are used to - but the machines usually let you add extra drying time (usually around ¥100 per ten minutes) at the start.
Etiquette
Remember to pick up your laundry promptly - I set a countdown timer on my phone so I can be back to pick it up. If someone else hasn't emptied their machine, it is considerate to wait 5-10 minutes before emptying their clothes into one of the provided baskets.
There are large tables provided for sorting and folding your clothes.
Hotel Laundry
Japanese Hotels and Hostels usually have self-service laundry facilities - business hotels almost always have them, some tourist hotels might not, but it's easy to find out online before booking.
Often the TV in your room will have information on the current status of the machines. Peak time is usually at night - I've had nights where I planned to do laundry in the hotel but the machines were too busy that I ventured out to use a coin laundry instead.
The machines in hotels often ask you to set a PIN code which locks & unlocks the door, so it isn't possible to remove someone else's load anyway.
Recently, the hotel chain Tokyu Stay has been marketing itself as having washing machines in 90% of their guest rooms, so you don't need to worry about the machines being taken!
Western Hotel brands are unlikely to have self-service laundry and usually provide expensive per-item on demand laundry which may take 24 hours, similar to the service you get in a hotel in Europe or North America.