Some river runners don’t put much stock in personal hygiene on a multi-day river trip. (Pre-teen boys come to mind.) Admittedly, a sun shower on a river trip seems like an unnecessary and distracting luxury when you’re trying to have a wilderness experience.
But there will come a time—maybe Day 16 of a Grand Canyon trip—when you can’t stand the sludge of sunscreen and sand on your body, the river water is cold or silty, and you just want to bask in a warm spray of water, if only for a few minutes. After considering and experimenting with various types of sun showers, here’s our take on the best sun showers for river trips that we’ve used, plus some buying tips for choosing the right sun shower for you. We’ll cover the specific factors involved in using a sun-powered camp shower on the river, point out some pros and cons in various styles, and point you to low-budget as well as high-end choices. We’ll also cover some other essential river trip personal hygiene gear. (Note: This post contains some affiliate links.)
How sun showers work
Sun showers—the solar-powered version of camp showers—are handy contraptions that hold water, have some sort of approach to capturing the sun’s rays to heat the water within, and have a mechanism for delivering the water through a tube that you use to dowse yourself. Some super-fancy camp showers can’t be classified as sun showers because they’re designed to work with a power source other than the sun. For example, this Geyser Systems Portable Shower with Heater is intended for car camping: You use the 12-volt plug to connect the shower to your car while it’s running, or you can use a deep-cycle battery to power it.
Gravity-powered sun showers
The design of the classic sun shower seen most often on river trips hasn’t changed much over the years. Most sun showers have a soft, baglike water reservoir that has one clear panel for the sun’s rays to pass through, and a dark panel that absorbs light, speeding the solar heating process. The water passes through the tube to the shower head by force of gravity: You hang the bag from a tree or a few oars rigged in a tower, and the water simply flows through the tube. The beauty of this simple design is it has few moving parts or connection points that could fail.
Pump-operated sun showers
The alternative sun shower design is a system that uses a foot or hand pump to force the water up through the tube. The advantages of these showers are that you don’t need to find a tree or rig up oars to hang them, and they can deliver better water pressure than a gravity-fed shower. But more complicated designs typically come with increased risk of malfunction, and that’s the case with sun showers as well. Especially on river trips, where every tube and connection gets subjected to sand, the parts can break down, get stuck, start to leak, and otherwise fail. However, that extra water pressure is nice.
Now let’s dive into the pros and cons of various sun shower features, and factors to keep in mind when choosing one for your river trips.
Tips for choosing the best sun shower for your river trips
Here are some guidelines for sifting through the various sun showers available and how to choose the right one for your situation.
How much room for gear do you have?
Sun showers don’t take up much room, but these little pieces of flotsam continue to add up in a raft load. If you want to conserve as much room as possible, or you’re doing a self-supported trip with kayaks, the Sea to Summit Pocket Shower is hands-down your best choice.
Will you have an easy way to hang a gravity-fed shower?
Some river camps have plenty of trees from which to hang a sun shower. Others are sandy islands or wide beaches. If your camps will be mostly tree-free, and you don’t relish the task of rigging up oars from which to hang the bag, you’ll be better off with a pump system.
How will you get the water heated?
Having a warm shower at the end of an exhilarating day of boating is a small miracle. But making sure the water is hot when the boats reach camp can be tricky. The easiest method is to lay the sun shower bag out on one of the raft decks (attached to the boat so it doesn’t wash away in rapids) or laid flat across the back load and clipped in. We’ve found that bag-style sun showers with a clear panel on one side and black on the other generates the hottest water at the end of the day and is the easiest to deal with on a raft. You can, of course, heat water in camp to add to the sun shower reservoir, but you might have to fight with the cook crew for burner space. (Be careful not to overheat the water before adding to a sun shower as most can’t handle boiling water.)
Do you prefer hands-free showering?
If you want to stand under the water flow, you’re better off with a gravity-fed shower. Although the pump types can be set to continuously flow, then you have to figure out where to hang the tube so the shower head is above you.
How important is water pressure to you?
If water pressure is the most important consideration, choose a pump-style shower.
How many people will be using the shower?
Of course you won’t be able to provide a warm shower for every member of a 16-person trip every night (and what river tripper would want that, anyway?). But if you have a big group, the bigger the sun shower reservoir, the better.
Our favorite sun showers for river trips
What are the best sun showers for each situation? Here are our picks.
Best gravity-powered sun shower: Advanced Elements Summer Shower
This inexpensive, packable sun shower is extremely easy to use, produces delightfully warm water, and can withstand the abuse of a river trip.
Upsides:
- Large capacity water reservoir at 5 gallons (2.5- and 3-gallon versions are available)
- Comfortable carrying handle (which matters when you’re hauling water from the river to a remote location)
- Large filling valve with a twist-off cap (important for cutting down on accidental spillage en route)
- Front mesh pocket can hold a washcloth or soap and includes a handy mirror
- Shower flow can be turned off to conserve water
- Excellent heating skills: On a sunny river trip with the shower oriented for maximum exposure, you’ll have 100-degree water in two to three hours
Downsides:
- Although we consider this shower pretty much perfect for our needs, if you don’t want to mess with a hanging shower, you’ll want to consider a pump shower
Best pump-activated sun shower: NEMO Helio LX Pressure Shower
Although this shower is significantly more expensive than our other picks, it produces great pressure through the foot pump, packs down compactly, and can be used as an overhead shower or a hand-held shower.
Upsides:
- Large capacity at 22 liters (about 5.8 gallons)
- Good water pressure produced by using the foot pump to pressurize the water
- Long (7-foot) hose connected to the shower head and a mechanism that holds the shower nozzle open for hands-free use
- Packs down into a compact carrying case
Downsides:
- Has more parts that can break our leak—but Nemo offers a lifetime warranty on this shower
- Harder to rig up to heat during the day—compared to a gravity bag sun shower, it’s harder to get the reservoir properly oriented and attached to a raft load so you’ll have hot water as soon as you hit camp
Best compact sun shower: Sea to Summit Pocket Shower
The Sea to Summit Pocket Shower is tiny but mighty. It’s perfect for small groups, self-supported kayakers, or confirmed minimalists.
Upsides:
- Extremely compact, weighing a little over 5 ounces
- Holds 10 liters of waters (about 2.6 gallons, plenty for one person’s shower)
- Heats up water in a few hours, which is fine if you’ve got a long day on the river
- Easy to rig up in a sun-facing spot on a raft load
Downsides:
- Weak water pressure
- Requires care when transporting full: Clip closure on the bag makes it easy to fumble the contents
- Comparatively expensive considering its size and simplicity
Of these three sun showers, the Summer Shower is the one that checks all of our boxes, but all three are solid choices depending on what factors are most important to you.
One more note about sun showers: If you have a big group or know you’ll have few options for hanging a bag, you might consider bringing a lightweight privacy shelter that has an open floor so water can drain into the sand and has a hook at the top to hang the bag or the nozzle. The Zempire Pocket Rocket Campsite Utility Tent is a great choice for this purpose.
(We also recommend having a shelter for the groover (river toilet) for multi-day trips. Here’s our detailed guide to choosing and using river toilets, including a discussion of what to look for in a groover shelter.)
Other essential river trip personal hygiene gear
In addition to a sun shower, you might want to consider some of these items so you can stay somewhat fresh on your next river trip.
- Biodegradable soap: Both CampSuds and Dr. Bronner’s (especially the peppermint kind, so refreshing!) are classics for river trips.
- Full body-size wipes: When a shower isn’t an option and the river water is cold, these Sea to Summit Wilderness Wipes are a game-changer, especially on a long trip like Grand Canyon.
- Hand sanitizer: Dr. Bronner’s lavender is a favorite in our crowd.
- Face wipes: Wiping the day’s grime off your face every evening is a joy. These No Rinse Bathing Wipes are nice because they contain Vitamin E and soothing aloe vera.
- Quick-dry towels: Nothing worse than having to drip-dry after a shower when the sun’s dropping behind the hills and it’s getting chilly. These REI Multi Towel Deluxe ones are workhorses, and the Nomadix Ultralight Towel is very compact and comes in groovy patterns.
River showers are a choice
At the end of the day, sun showers on river trips are absolutely optional. You can wash up with river water (following established Leave No Trace rules for where to use biodegradable soap for the watershed you’re in). But once you’ve experienced the magic of a warm shower while standing under a big pine tree by a rushing river, it’s hard to go back.
Sand-encrusted (and happy) river tripper
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