Towel - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

Deadguy · 01-13-2005, 01:53 PM

do i need a travel towel?
I'd rather not add to the weight of my bag. do hostles provide them or have them available for a fee?
where the heck do i get a travel towel anway?
Thanks!

**TheJake** · 01-13-2005, 02:04 PM

i took a regular towel with me. Some hostels provide them for a charge (sometimes you can get the staff to let you use them) but there were a lot of times when I had to wash up in a bus station or something and thats when having my own towel came in real handy like.

**pinion** · 01-13-2005, 02:09 PM

I took a travel towel with me & I hate them...I really do. With a passion. Thats my least favorite part about backpacking

I only came across 1 hostel that let you rent towels, but man was that ever sweet!

Most camping stores or surplus stores carry them and you can get usually get a generic brand that work fine for around $10.

I brought a big ziplock bag with me to store the towel in, when you're on the go you can't always let things dry. I tried to do most of my showering at night to give the towel the longest drying period.

**U2fan** · 01-13-2005, 02:10 PM

I usually take a pack towel (Pak Towel I think is the brand?)....they're very thin and not as absorbent as a regular one, which kinds of sucks, but they are so small and you can practically roll it up into a tiny ball, so they don't take up really any room. It's better than nothing and a towel can waste a lot of space, unless you know some great folding skill I don't.

**kingcrazylegs** · 01-13-2005, 02:37 PM

Cascade Designs, (also owner of MSR) makes Paktowel, which I think works best for backpacking. Certainly not as nice as a regular towel, but worth having for serious space saving back packers! Cascade also makes Therm-a-rest, so they are really good at what they do!

Deadguy · 01-13-2005, 03:20 PM

Thanks alot guys!
I better get to lookin' for one.

**omisan** · 01-13-2005, 11:59 PM

Paktowels are handy, but despite the little extra space it takes up, I can't travel without a nice, soft towel. It's like the only comfort from home that I have with me, and there's nothing like getting out of a nasty communal shower than snuggling up in the warm plushness of a good towel - it's like getting a consoling hug from an old friend. I usually fold it to about medium-size and line the back of my backpack's main compartment with it, so it's really not taking up all that much space...

The other thing you can do is if you're staying in each city for a decent amount of time, find a cheap place to buy a towel that you wouldn't mind dumping. My friend bought a towel for $2 in Spain with the intent of chucking it, but he loved it so much he lugged it all over Europe

**Joker** · 01-14-2005, 01:09 AM

"Don't forget to bring a towel!"

I need to find one that says "Don't Panic" stitched on it. My life will be complete, i think.

Ahh, hell.

42!

**Rozza** · 01-14-2005, 08:05 AM

SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIANCE

haha

**Joker** · 01-14-2005, 09:21 AM

Pan-galactic gargle blasters for all!

(you really are a kneebiter, Dent.)

:D

**Joker** · 01-14-2005, 09:26 AM

Quote:

* * A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical
* * value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

* * More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

In short, DON'T FORGET TO BRING A TOWEL!!!

:D

skorch · 01-14-2005, 12:06 PM

I was at this backpacker store near my house and they had these microfibre full-sized towels that the guy at the counter says he swears by. I dunno if those are the same ones you are all talking about. I was going to pick one up when I leave and give it a run for its money.

**kingcrazylegs** · 01-14-2005, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by skorch@Jan 14 2005, 03:06 PM
I was at this backpacker store near my house and they had these microfibre full-sized towels that the guy at the counter says he swears by.* I dunno if those are the same ones you are all talking about.* I was going to pick one up when I leave and give it a run for its money.

Yea, those are them.

**Rozza** · 01-15-2005, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Joker@Jan 14 2005, 05:21 PM
Pan-galactic gargle blasters for all!

(you really are a kneebiter, Dent.)

:D

I hate my life, not that any one cares, intellect the size of a galaxy, and they have me doing this. This is so mundane, i hate those doors, why do they have to be so cheerful.... B)

**Joker** · 01-15-2005, 11:28 PM

This is my Cathedral of Hate! :D