Motorhome vs. Public Bathrooms: Which to Use?

While vacationing in a hired motorhome, you may have an onboard toilet and even an onboard shower available for you to use.

While these conveniences can make life easier and more comfortable, you probably also are aware that many motorhome parks and campgrounds offer toilets and showers of their own.

If you do not have a lot of experience with travelling in a motorhome, you may wonder whether it is better to use your onboard bathroom or the bathrooms in the parks where you stay.

This is a subjective matter. If you talk to other vacationers or full-timers, you will encounter very different opinions on the topic. So to help you plan for your own vacation, following are some of the pros and cons of each of your options.

Pros of Your Motorhome Bathroom:

• Obviously, if you stay in your motorhome and use the onboard bathroom, you maximize your privacy—at this in terms of dealing with other vacationers, park residents and park staff.

• It saves you time and effort not to have to walk all the way to the shower facilities and back carrying all of your stuff. It is just a much more convenient option.

• The motorhome bathroom is clean, and will stay that way so long as you do not make a mess of it. For a lot of people, this is the biggest selling point on using the onboard bathroom.

Cons of Your Motorhome Bathroom:

• Even though you maximize privacy with respect to other people at the campground, you may have less privacy with respect to other people you are travelling with.

• In order not to clog the black tank, you will need to make sure that you’re using the appropriate type of toilet paper.

• You will need to deal with emptying your black tank if you are using it.

• Taking a shower in a motorhome is not the most comfortable prospect for everyone. Showers in motorhomes tend to be on the small size. For larger travellers, they may not be entirely feasible. Water pressure also tends to be lower than what you would get from a regular shower.

• As a short-term traveller, you don’t really need to worry about humidity. But if you were a full-timer, you would need to concern yourself with airing out the motorhome to prevent mold.

Pros of a Public Bathroom:

• You get all the space you need in the shower. There also should be a private stall with plenty of room for changing and taking care of any other personal hygiene needs. For a lot of folks, this is simply more comfortable and less of a hassle than a small motorhome bathroom.

• Water pressure in a public shower can vary. At some parks, it may be on the low side, but at many, it may be closer to what you enjoy at home.

• If you are using the public bathroom instead of the toilet in your motorhome, you do not have to deal with the black tank at all. You can just ignore it.

• There may be more counter space in the public bathroom if you want to spread stuff out to do your hair/makeup, etc.

Cons of a Public Bathroom:

• To many people, public showers seem “unclean.” The reality is that there can be wide variation in the cleanliness and upkeep of RV park restrooms. While some of them can be pretty dodgy, many are really no less clean than any other public restroom you’re used to using. From my experiences, the perception that RV park restrooms are “unhygienic” is greatly exaggerated. That being said, like any other public showers, they do seem conducive to athlete’s foot.

• You have to put up with disruptions in the public restroom. Another annoyance of using motorhome parking campground toilets and showers is that people are constantly coming and going, interrupting you and making noise. You do not need to deal with this if you use your onboard toilet and shower.

• People doing their laundry can pull hot water from the showers. While not an issue at every campground, oftentimes, when people throw in their wash next door, all the hot water can go out of the shower for part of the cycle. This is not an issue in your motorhome shower.

• Sometimes public restrooms are closed for cleaning. Although some motorhome parks do not take the time to clean their bathrooms as often as they should, others may do so daily. Even though this is obviously a positive, sometimes it means that the bathroom is not available for a period of time.

• Finally, sometimes there is no public restroom. There are RV parks that do not offer showers. Also, if you are parked at a remote campground rather than a motorhome resort, you may have no shower or toilet to use at all aside from the one that you have onboard.

Should You Use the Onboard or Public Bathroom While Vacationing in a Hired Motorhome? You Decide.

Having read through the pros and cons above, you can see that there are quite a few advantages and disadvantages of both onboard bathrooms in hired motorhomes and public facilities at parks and campgrounds.

Ultimately, neither option is definitively superior to the other. It all depends on your preferences and sensibilities as well as what is most convenient to you and your family while travelling.

What is great about hiring a motorhome is that you do have options. You can even try using both public and onboard bathrooms and decide for yourself which you prefer.

For more tips for taking a motorhome or campervan vacation in New Zealand, be sure and keep up with our blog.