Travel with own bed linen and towels, or not?

[MangosteenSoda]

Does anyone prefer to travel with their own bed linen and towels?

Apparently the good people of Belgium do. We arrived at a lovely apartment today and had to organise a linen package (never heard of this before so never thought to ask) because most people just bring their own.

I’ve just wrangled a flat sheet onto a queen bed and done the duvet dance (not a euphemism), it’s just my least favourite household job and I’m rubbish at doing it efficiently.

So mumsnetters, do any of you travelling with linen people walk among us?

It's normal for self catering in all French speaking countries. Most people pay for the linen hire though. It's no more weird than having to buy your own toilet roll really

I realised I'd entered my Dowager Duchess phase when I took my own pillowcases everywhere. I hate low thread count fabric.

I remember the linen thing from travelling around France and Belgium when I was young.

In Italy, paying for linen hire and making up your beds is pretty common in self catering. Maybe 40%.

I’ve brought my own a couple of times but gave up because the thought of dealing with dirty sheets and towels (x4 people) from the last night was too depressing!

I do take ancient facecloths and chuck them before we leave.

Very common. We always check if linen and towels are included.
If we have the car we always take our own pillows and I admit to taking a pair of large hand towels and a duvet cover in case we arrive somewhere and the stuff is of an unacceptable standard.
If we're flying then I'm with OttersOnAPlane and always take my own pillowcases, not that they fit on those bolster pillows you sometimes get but it's better than nothing.

When and if i have to travel i take my own towels and beding all of whitch are disposable.
Even a disposable bathrobe hair towel wrap etc.

Not taken my own linen abroad, do take beach towels. Can't remember if they had to ordered separately but there's no way I'd do it myself so would have chosen that option.

Sleeping bags for camping a different matter - love camping but blimey it's a lot of work, before and after.

This was a surprise for us too when we booked self-catering in Belgium - for we’d never experienced discovering a complete lack of sheets in a comparable situation anywhere else on the continent….

Pretty common, but I always check. I also always take a sheet in my luggage if going somewhere a bit off the beaten track …just in case of grottiness, lack of sheets, need a curtain or to hide from mozzies. Surprisingly useful!

This is pretty normal, you buy linen and towels as part of the reservation.

Wow! Whole new world out there. I’ve done self catering in France, Italy and Germany before and have never come across this.

Ideally, I’d love to travel with a full complement of my own silk bed linen and an entourage to sort it out for me. Alas, I have neither so just have to hope for it being provided and in place on arrival. Another thing to add to the holiday check list.

Normal for Iceland.

when we self catered there the company offered linen pickup at the airport for international travellers.

I’m absolutely phobic about pillows and can smell other heads on them. So if we’re renting a cottage in the UK, I take my own pillow. Other linen or towels, no.

You throw all of that away each holiday?

Normal in France. We went self catering several times for skiing in France and it was always the case of going to "rent" your bedding and towels from a central office and then returning them there at the end of your stay to get a deposit refund. It was also normal for you to do a proper clean at the end of your stay, including full vacuum/mopping of the floor, washing all crockery and cutlery, wiping the sinks, bath, shower and loo, etc. - basically back to how it was when you took occupany and ready for the next guests - again, you could pay extra for cleaners to do it if you preferred, and again, you lost your deposit if it wasn't cleaned to standard.

I travel with a towel, usually because I don’t want to take the Airbnb/hotel towels to the beach. I think that would be in pretty poor taste. But apart from that I would never take bed linen!

I’m not sure this is true? I have an Airbnb booked in France in the summer and it comes with all linen, and you don’t have to deep clean it! I think they were having you on

We take our own pillows, duvets, sheets and towels, even in "quality" UK holiday cottages etc. Duvets are often too hot in Summer as the owners don't have different "Summer" and "Winter" duvet so leave a high tog duvet all year around. Lots of places don't have pillow/mattress protectors so when you take off the sheets and pillow cases at the end of the stay you can see all the stains. Pillows are personal as people have their own preferences, i.e. hard/soft or poly/cotton. We always go by car so there's enough room to take our own stuff.

This was several different French ski resorts over several years. There were usually queues at the office on arrival days with people queuing to pick up their bags of linen. Was yours on a ski resort?

No, but you said it’s common across France. I think that’s probably just a way for a very seasonal business to squeeze as much money as possible out of their guests.

I've never had this, we stayed in self catering in Italy near Cortona last summer and all beds were fully made up.

Plus the sofa had sheets and pillows which I used as it was the coolest room at night.

If I had space I would take my own feather pillow, but I can cope with a crap one for a week.

I must have gotten lucky until now in that case. The place we are staying is lovely and not particularly cheap so I just assumed it was a Belgian cultural thing. When the person realised we had come by air and said, ‘so you will need a linen package’ I had no idea what they were talking about.

I’m clearly a skank by lots of people’s standards because I definitely prefer just having the bedding ready on the bed for me 😁

Yes i do.
I bulk buy it all for this reason.
Its queit cheap.

Sometimes we throw stuff away, but we tend to only take "end of life" stuff anyway, so not bothered whether we bring it back or not. Never take any new/decent stuff really. If we bring it back, it probably gets washed and put away ready to take to the next one.

We’re going self catering to a 3* Agriturismo in Le Marche (Italy) and the bed and bath linen charge of €10 per person was clearly stated on the booking.

I don’t think that’s bad for washing and labour. And you can order more if you want a mid-week refresh.

This is insane and so bad for the environment