No, this is not about the sorts of things found on r/Showerthoughts. This is about hygiene while homeless.
I spent nearly six years homeless. I traveled on foot and catching rides for a bit. I sometimes stayed at a hotel. I mostly slept in a tent.
While traveling, I sometimes managed to get a shower at a truck stop. If I recall correctly, these tended to cost around $5, though it's been a few years so that price may be out of date. We also did laundry once at a truck stop.
I spent a month camped legally at a beach with access to beach showers. Part of the time, I had access to the public showers for a dollar apiece, cold water only. Part of the time, I had access to the nicer bathrooms on the campgrounds using a key card. These had hot water.
I spent a few months in the downtown of a big city where I regularly took advantage of homeless services. I was able to sign up for a free shower most days.
I then left and floated around a bit. I typically cleaned up at a sink of a public bathroom or at the beach. Even though I'm a woman, I kept my hair extremely short for hygiene reasons. It made it possible to keep it clean without access to a shower.
After nearly two years without a proper shower, I left the area. While traveling, I stayed at a hotel one night and got my first proper shower again, which would prove to be a trend.
I actually took two showers in that hotel. One shower was not enough to get the dead skin off.
For the next year or so, I stayed periodically at a hotel for one to three nights. It was often in response to some crisis and/or having money unexpectedly, such as a bad storm rolling in.
I generally took a bath, not a shower, because I needed to soak the dead skin off my feet. A shower wasn't sufficient.
The last year or so that I was on the street, I usually spent at least one night a month at a cheap hotel. With doing that, I was able to just shower instead of bathing and it made it possible to stay more cleaned up the rest of the time.
I got off the street a bit over two years ago and had access to a shower 24/7, but typically showered about every three days. It was about ten times as much as I had been showering and I usually felt clean enough.
I'm medically handicapped. It took a long time to rehabilitate myself, so to speak.
About three months ago, I set a goal to resume showering daily and I tracked it for about two months to make it a habit. After seventy-some-odd days, I missed one day while not feeling well, then immediately resumed showering daily the very next day.
(Insert joke about how this belongs on r/CongratsLikeImFive.)