On the Big Lap, your caravan gets hit by everything Australia has: red dust through the Centre, salt spray up the coasts, bugs across the Nullarbor, and wash water that changes hardness every few hundred kilometres. Keeping the van clean on the road is a different job from washing it at home, and the water you rinse with matters more than any product in your locker. Here is how travelling washers keep a van, a tow rig and a roof full of solar panels clean for months on end.
The three enemies of a travelling van
- Salt. Coastal legs coat the van and the tow vehicle in airborne salt that eats at fittings, checker plate and paint if it stays. Salt wants to be rinsed off promptly, not wiped, because wiping dry salt drags it across the surface.
- Dust and bugs. Outback dust bonds with dew into a film, and a day's worth of bugs on the front of the van sets like cement in the sun. Both come off easily when fresh and stubbornly when baked.
- The local water. The tap at each stop is a lottery. Town supplies around Australia range from under 50 ppm to well over 300, and plenty of country stops are on hard bore supplies. Wash a big white wall of caravan with 400 ppm water and let it dry in the sun, and it will look worse than before you started. Our tap water TDS guide and hardness by suburb guide show just how much the water changes between stops.
Why spot free matters more on a caravan
A caravan is three to four times the surface area of a car, most of it high, flat and white. Hand drying one is a 30 to 60 minute job with a step ladder, and on a van you simply will not do it at every stop, which means whatever is dissolved in the rinse water is staying on the van. That is the case for carrying your own water purification: a deionising tank turns whatever comes out of the local tap into 0 ppm water, so the whole van, roof and solar panels included, air dries clean while you do something better with your afternoon. The full technique is in our caravan and motorhome washing guide.
A DI tank as travel gear
The tank earns its storage space on a lap because it needs nothing from the campsite: no power, no pump, no chemicals. It connects between any tap and your hose, weighs what a jerry can weighs, and rides in a tunnel boot or ute tray. A few practical notes from the road:
- The Medium (10L) is the travelling size. Compact enough to stow, and at a typical 100 to 150 ppm town supply a fill purifies roughly 1,700 to 2,900 litres. A caravan final rinse runs 40 to 60 litres, a car 25 to 35, so a fill covers a long stretch of lap.
- Check the tap before you commit. The TDS meter in the kit reads the local supply in seconds. On a soft-water stop, wash freely. On a 400 ppm bore tap, wash with the bypass open and save the purified water strictly for the final pass, or wait for the next town.
- Solar panels are part of the wash. Dusty panels quietly cost you charge, and they should only ever be rinsed with purified water so no film builds up on the glass. Same tank, same rinse, done from the ground or a step, never standing on the roof next to the panels.
- Resin swaps happen anywhere. A spare resin kit in the boot and the 15 minute swap keep you at 0 ppm for the whole trip. The spent resin ties off in its cloth bag and goes in any general waste bin.
Where you are allowed to wash on the road
Rules change with every council and every caravan park. Many parks do not allow washing on site, some have a dedicated wash bay, and country service stations often run high-clearance DIY bays that fit a van. The polite play is always to ask the park office first, and where restrictions apply they usually target town water, so bucket washing or your own carried water may still be fine. We keep the state by state detail in our guide to car washing rules and water restrictions in Australia, and the bore and rainwater rules guide covers the off-grid side.
A simple on-road washing rhythm
- After a coastal leg: rinse the salt off promptly, van and tow rig, paying attention to the chassis, hitch and checker plate. This is the wash that protects the van's value.
- After a dusty leg: a proper wash when you reach a stop where washing is allowed: pre-rinse, soap the front and lower half, rinse, then the purified final pass so it dries clean without towelling.
- Monthly on the roof: a purified water rinse over the solar panels, early morning while the glass is cool.
- Before storage or the trip home: the full wash including under the van, so nothing corrosive sits on it while it is parked up.
None of this needs to eat your travel days. The whole point of the purified final rinse is that the drying stage disappears: wash the van, rinse it, and go back to the beach. Wash. Rinse. Pack up.
Frequently asked questions
How do you wash a caravan while travelling?
Find a stop where washing is allowed (ask the park office or use a DIY wash bay), wash as normal with whatever water is available, and do the final rinse with deionised water so the van air dries spot free without hand drying.
Can you carry a water purification tank in a caravan?
Yes, that is exactly how travellers use them. The tank needs no power, connects to any tap, and stows like a jerry can in a tunnel boot or tray.
Do you need to wash salt off a caravan?
Yes, promptly after coastal travel. Airborne salt attacks fittings and paint if it sits, and rinsing it off while fresh is far easier than dealing with it later.
What water is safe for caravan solar panels?
Purified water. Hard tap or bore water dries as a mineral film on the glass that costs you charge. Deionised water rinses panels clean and dries to nothing.
How much water does a caravan rinse use?
Roughly 40 to 60 litres for the final rinse on a typical van, on top of the wash water. A 10L deionising tank fill covers many rinses at normal town water hardness.
