Most backcountry jaunts usually come with a scarcity of running water—if any at all. That lack of even the simplest washing facilities will naturally lead to adventure-induced swamp ass and heinously stinky feet if you're out there for several ripe days without a reliable means of keeping clean.
Never mind that old refrain in the boonies—who cares how you smell outdoors? (Answer: everyone else). Investing in the latest innovative backcountry camping showers and washing gear means people won't shun you out on the trailhead or especially when re-entering civilization. We found the two best camping showers that will keep you smelling—and feeling—fresh enough to comfortably eat at a diner after breaking camp, step onto a train right from the trail, or hop back in your car without traumatizing whoever's sitting next to you. Our best overall pick for those who crave a nice shower wherever they roam is the Sea to Summit Pocket Shower.
Related: Make One of These Backcountry Bars Your Next Big Adventure
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I write about gear and the outdoors for over two dozen publications across the web and newsstands. I'm also an outdoorsman, angler, bikepacker, and knife obsessive who's also usually the designated camp cook and bartender.
Wash Up, Wipe Down, Walk Out
These days, there's no shortage of dedicated gear to keep you feeling fresh in the backcountry, from ultralight pocket showers and powerful wipes to pressurized solar showers and plastic-bottle powered bidets. Of course, nothing hits the mark quite like a genuine shower with lots of soap and clean, cascading water.
Besides the best camping showers, we’ve also rounded up the top backcountry options for cleaning gear, skin, and hands anywhere you need to go. Each one can be used for everything from dishes and laundry to bodies and hair. They're all available in TSA-friendly containers, eminently biodegradable, and effective. Just remember, no matter how biodegradable soap is, it should always be used at least 200 feet from water sources when camping—in accordance with leave-no-trace guidelines.
Here are the best camping showers and the cleaning accessories you'll need for a fresh start to washing away the ass-end of a good adventure.
Best Overall Camping Shower: Sea to Summit Pocket Shower
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The Pocket Shower is a simple concept well executed: put a shower head on a roll-top bag. Make it black for heat absorption. Fill it. Hang it. Shower.
In our tests, the pocket shower provided an 8- to 9-minute shower set to low. On high, it drained in about 6 to 7 minutes, with a moderately powerful and wide cone. It also worked well for cleaning cookware and washing gear. In a pinch, clothing can be tossed in with soap and water (the bag turned upside down, the shower head used to release air) for a slightly less efficient Scrubba-style means of cleaning your duds.
In most tests, Pocket Shower ranked either middle or last in warming time for the water. Being quick to lose heat, it depended heavily on good positioning and consistent sunshine to get water truly warm. Likewise, its shower head is easily clogged and hard to maintain if used with silty water. The included string for hanging is also better replaced with stronger cordage. Nevertheless, as an easy-to-use-and-stow, multi-functional ultralight shower, the Sea to Summit Pocket Shower is a top pick for weight-conscious adventurers.
- Weight: 4.3 ounces
- Style: Hanging solar shower
- Purpose: A proper shower for dedicated backpackers
Best Car Camping Shower: Decathlon Quechua 10 L Solar Shower
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Road tripping and overlanding allow space for overkill, and Decathlon’s Quechua Shower does overkill well. It was the most consistently warm shower in our lineup. The bleed-off valve made it easy to know when it was fully pressurized. Large, quiet, and easy-to-use, the pump only required around 20 strokes before the shower was ready. The flexible, handheld showerhead’s sliding dial made adjusting the flow rate easy, and provided around 4 minutes of run time on high and over 7 minutes on low.
The Quechua shower is big and bulky—and you'll have to re-pressurize the shower around halfway through. Nevertheless, the quick warming speed, a reasonably accurate temperature gauge on the front, and a handheld nozzle with appreciable pressure and spread make this the car camping no-brainer for everything from hosing down the dog after a beach day to washing the tent pre-pack up.
- Weight: 1.98 pounds
- Style: Pressurized solar shower
- Purpose: A car camping wash-all
Best Camping Soap: Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile
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Dr. Bronner's is a beloved name in the backcountry for a reason. As a Castille soap (one primarily made from various plant oils), Dr. Bronner’s is biodegradable, with no synthetic detergents.
It’s also powerful—as anyone who has tried to clean greasy residue off plastic camp bowls will attest. Concentrated enough to be practical for a plethora of tasks, it may not lather as well as your average hand or dish soap, but a few drops will get you or the dishes fully clean. In our tests, a teaspoon in a 10-liter basin was enough to wash a typical backpacking laundry load: base layer tops and bottoms, two pairs of socks, a pair of underwear, and a sweater.
That concentration is double-edged, especially with the peppermint. A few too many drops on a rag, and you may end up with a curiously strong case of cool-breeze crotch. For those particularly worried about using scented soaps in bear country, Dr. Bronner’s also makes an unscented version.
Our advice? If Dr. Bronner’s works well for you for household cleaning, simply stock up on their refill cartons. You’ll save money, use less plastic, and always have some on hand to squeeze into a TSA-friendly container before jetting off.
- Size: 2 ounces
- Style: Concentrated Castille soap
- Scents: Peppermint, lavender, unscented
Best Ultralight Camping Soap: Sea to Summit Pocket Wilderness Wash
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Sea to Summit is an ultralight outdoor accessory standard—and their Pocket Wilderness Wash is no exception. Fifty dissolvable leaves weigh less than half of an ounce, and at 2.75 x 1.75 inches, take up almost no space.
In our tests, two to three leaves in a 10-liter basin were enough to hand wash a load of camp clothes and cookware. One to two dissolved into a towel or hands was not only enough for a full shower, but lathered better than most other soaps tested. And if you’re not a fan of catch-all soaps, their similar Pocket Wash offers options tailored to hands, laundry, shampoo, and more.
With leaves, the dosage is set. Unless you’re willing to break out your pocketknife to cut them into smaller sections, you’ll always be using at least one leaf. Additionally, the container isn’t waterproof. So, if you’re setting off on an adventure that involves plenty of water, tossing them into a zip-top bag will keep you from turning your day bag into the world’s worst washing machine.
- Weight: 0.48 ounces
- Style: Dissolvable leaves
- Scents: Unscented
Best Portable Camping Washer: Scrubba Wash Bag
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If you travel with your clothes in a dry bag, stuff sack, or pod—why not use that same bag to wash the garments you carry? This is the ethos of Scrubba, a dry bag with a relatively rigid internal washboard. Simply put water and soap into the bag, toss in your clothes, and roll it around on the ground for anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes. It might be a less multifunctional pick, plus the bag’s small valve for air is a bit fiddly and will let some water out if the bag is compressed too much, but in our tests it made for the easiest and driest clothes-washing experience.
We wouldn’t recommend using the Scrubba as a dedicated water sports dry bag. Likewise, if you’re camping on muddy ground or sharp rocks, the bag requires care to avoid puncturing it, or getting a bunch of dirt in your pack later. The 2-liter mini and 6-liter large makes for a versatile and easy-to-use packing/washing device. If you’re packing dry clothes in it later, we recommend going with black, so that, turned inside out, it will dry quicker.
- Sizes: 2, 6 liter
- Weights: 2.5, 5.3 ounces
- Style: Roll-top dry bag with internal washboard
Best Camping Basin: Sea to Summit Kitchen Sink
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Don’t pack everything-but-the-kitchen-sink. Bring that too! Washing things in a sink is as basic as it comes. However, from a questionable hotel room to a desert campground, that isn’t always an option. Fortunately, the Kitchen Sink can carry up to 20 liters of water, and hold water hot enough for a trail side hot towel bath, despite its nearly negligible 6.6 ounce weight.
Of the three sizes available, we recommend the 10 liter. It’s practical for carrying water and just big enough for laundry and dishes, while folding away into the least awkward package: a 1 x 5-inch puck. It's tricky to use without spilling a bit of water, but for sheer versatility, it makes our list as a toss-it-in-your-pack-and-forget-it pick—one that pairs well with Sea to Summit’s Lite Line Clothesline to dry those socks out before your flight in the morning.
- Sizes: 5, 10, 20 liters
- Weights: 3.5, 4.7, 6.6 ounces
- Style: Folding basin
Best Camping Wet Wipes: Venture Wipes Bug Defense
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There are larger, tougher wipes out there, but Venture’s Bug Defense hits a sweet spot. They're large enough for two to three to hit all the hotspots without issue, and hold up well throughout. The individual wrapping does mean carrying more packaging. However, it makes them particularly easy to stash away everywhere. And unlike so many wipes, they don’t smell like a nursery.
Infused with citronella, rosemary, peppermint, and thyme oils, the wipes have a powerful scent, which will leave your feet smelling like fresh herbs and lemon peels, instead of trenches or toddlers. The oils are actually intended to aid with mosquito repulsion. Granted, due to their limited efficacy and quick evaporation time, such plant oils should never be the front line of backcountry bug defense. (The best options on that front remain DEET, permethrin, and picaridin.) Nevertheless, between providing a pleasant scent and a potential boost to mosquito repellency—especially for any forays into sensitive aquatic environments where you might want to avoid leeching harsher chemicals—Venture Wipe’s Bug Defense is our No. 1 pick for on-the-go odor elimination.
- Weight: 0.20 ounce per wipe
- Style: Individually wrapped wipes
- Purpose: On-the-go wipe downs
Best Camping Bidet: CuloClean Backpacking Bidet
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You read that right. The CuloClean is, essentially, a nozzle that can fit onto a wide range of bottles. Pop it on, cop a squat, and euro wash. Toilet paper might not be heavy, but it’s often at a premium in any pack. It also has the nasty habit of often being disposed of incorrectly or dug up by animals. Backpacking bidets like the CuloClean aim to fix this by reducing reliance on them.
CuloClean ranked first among those we tested for ease of use, portability, and inconspicuousness. However, we still recommend practicing before going out. For a truly first class experience, put a drop or two of your favorite soap into a collapsible bottle, and still bring TP. A soapy hose down with a hand polish will leave your backside feeling like a lavender breeze no matter how many miles it covered that day.
- Weight: 0.42 ounces
- Style: Bottle-top bidet
- Purpose: Backcountry butt freshener
Best Camping Towels: PackTowl Personal and Ultralite
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Cotton is king for ultra-soft towels with heavyweight water absorption. In a pinch, an old cotton face towel can work for outdoor excursions. However, for a similar price to luxury cotton towels, modern packing towels can offer incredible water absorption in more lightweight, stowable, quick-drying, and antimicrobial packages.
Chief among them are PackTowl’s Personal and Ultralite towels. In our tests, the softer and more supple Personal microfiber towel was able to absorb around three-and-a-half times its own weight in water. The Ultralite option was able to absorb more than four. In terms of absolute water absorption, they fell behind cotton, but dried several times faster, and, if allowed to dry out, never soured—all while providing superior durability. Our recommendation: If you’re not counting every gram, go with the Personal line for skin use. Their antimicrobial treatment will keep them fresh for ages, and can easily be hung out to dry, or dry-strapped to a backpack or bike. For gram-counters, especially those looking to clean gear, wash dishes, or pull double duty in household cleaning, the Ultralite series is worth every fraction of an ounce.
- Sizes: Face, hand, body, beach
- Style: Ultralight or lightweight poly/nylon blends
- Purpose: Face, body, or gear wash and dry
Best Camping Water Jug: Sea to Summit Watercell X
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The Watercell X is easily one of the most versatile pieces of gear on this list. The reservoir’s wide mouth, rugged 400D nylon wrap, and thick, adjustable TPU strap make filling, carrying, and hanging the bag easy anywhere. Our 10-liter top pick does weigh almost 9 ounces empty. That’s not negligible weight, but the Watercell more than makes up for it in utility.
The bag is one of the best fully-enclosed water haulers available. Its threaded 63mm mouth can fit common filter adapters, allowing it to efficiently gravity-filter water. It’s primary nozzle attachment provides a powerful stream for washing cookware. The attachable shower nipple provides a powerful, wide cone for a nearly 8-minute shower. Granted, the last minute of that shower was more of a trickle.
Still, for heavy-duty versatility, especially on multi-person trips, Sea to Summit's Watercell X lineup has the right size to be your do-it-all backcountry MVP.
- Sizes: 4, 6, 10, 20 liters
- Weights: 6, 6.9, 8.6, 11.8 ounces
- Style: Hanging reservoir
- Purpose: Heavy-duty, do-it-all water carrier
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