The question everyone actually asks
When I mention that our guests sleep in a rooftop tent on a Tesla, the same question comes back almost every time – usually after a short pause, because people find it slightly awkward to ask:
"So where do you shower?"
It's a fair question. An RV has a bathroom on board. We don't. That isn't a detail to gloss over – it's the central difference between the two ways of travelling, and most travel write-ups about the American West simply skip past it.
So here's the honest answer, with prices and method.
The mistaken assumption: you don't need a bathroom, you need access to one
An onboard bathroom in an RV costs you space, weight, fresh water, waste water, and the obligation to deal with both regularly. Anyone who has stood at a dump station knows exactly what I mean.
Going without inverts it: you don't haul a bathroom across the desert, you use the ones already there. There are far more of them in the American West than Europeans expect – you just have to know where.
The difference Americans don't notice
Ask an American where you shower on the road and the answer is usually "at the gym." Many hold a nationwide membership and shower in any branch, right across the country.
That doesn't work for European travellers – you don't have that membership, and for a two-week trip it rarely pays off. Which is exactly why this standard answer never appears in guides written for German visitors, and exactly why I'm writing this article.
There is a middle path though: day passes. Plenty of gyms sell them cheaply, and some hand out free trial days. For a single shower on the road that's an entirely normal use, not a loophole.
The places that actually work
State campgrounds. The most reliable route. You don't have to camp there – a day-use pass is often just a few dollars, and the showers are usually coin-operated, on the order of roughly 30 minutes for a few dollars. Prices vary by state and season; plan on having coins, not a card.
Truck stops. The big interstate chains – Pilot and Flying J are the best known – have showers for long-haul drivers that travellers can use too. Clean, towels provided, for a fee. For most Germans this is the least familiar tip on the list and simultaneously the most useful.
Boat marinas. Little known, often very well equipped, because boat owners have exactly the same needs.
Public swimming pools. Pay the entry, swim, shower. An easy answer especially in smaller towns.
Beaches and lakes. Many have outdoor showers. Cold water – but after a hot day in the desert that's rarely a drawback.
And as a last resort: a motel. One or two motel nights in the middle of a longer tour aren't a defeat, they're trip planning. Do laundry, shower properly, sleep in a bed, move on.
How to find these places yourself
The list above covers the places we know. The method behind it works everywhere:
iOverlander is the app for it. You can filter specifically for showers, including coin-operated ones. Entries come from travellers, carry dates and comments – so you can see whether somewhere still worked recently.
It's the same approach as in our boondocking article: I deliberately don't publish a list of "secret spots," I publish the tool. Published secret spots stop being secret after one season.
Pace is the real trick
The point where hygiene on the road genuinely falls apart isn't the missing shower – it's rushing.
In camping and RV travel the 3-3-3 rule is a well-established rule of thumb: drive no more than about 300 miles a day, be at your site by around 3pm, stay at least three nights in the same place.
Arrive at 3pm and you have time for a shower, laundry and dinner before dark. Drive until 9pm and you have none of those options – and suddenly the missing onboard toilet is a problem that simply wasn't one before.
Incidentally it's the same rule that defuses the charging question. Travel relaxed and you charge along the way. Rush, and you wait.
Toilets: the short, unromantic answer
During the day: national parks, visitor centres, gas stations, restaurants and rest areas are dense enough that it simply isn't an issue.
At night while boondocking it takes planning – and here the Camper's Code of Ethics applies without exception: you leave a place as you found it, or better. That isn't merely good manners, it's the reason these places are still open at all. They get closed almost entirely because of the people who ignore it.
If you'd rather not leave the tent at night, deliberately plan the last trip before bed. It sounds trivial, but it's the difference between a good night and a restless one.
What this honestly means
This way of travelling isn't for everyone. If you want room service, or you're uneasy around insects and animals, a rooftop tent won't make you happy – nature comes with it, and that's the point rather than a side effect.
If you can live with that, you get something an RV can't offer: no waste tank, no dumping, no manoeuvring a forty-foot vehicle onto a pitch. Plus the certainty that the hygiene question resolves with a few dollars in coins and an app.
Less really is more when camping. More time for the landscape, less time for the equipment.