Lightweight towels

Stuck on a Giant

Off to Brittany in a month's time and looking for towels to take - have seen the felt-like ones, fibre ones, and the ones like artificial chamois. Any thoughts on what it best? and what size is needed?

Thanks

heavymental

I've used one of those Pack Towels and its awful. You just end up pushing the water around! Then again, I think they're supposed to get better after a few uses but I think I'd just take a small towel in future and hope you get enough sun to dry it off easily.

andymiller

I hated mine. I got a nice little microfibre which works well, seems to dry reasonably quickly and isn't too heavy.

ThatGuyOnABike

i got a lifesystems soft fibre towel from blacks and it seems to work fine. don't buy cheap though cos i did that once (£4-5 i think from lidl) and got a towel that created static (???) and felt like carpet against the skin.

ThatGuyOnABike

oh and size wise get the biggest one so you can use the corners for your face and the middle for the rest.

megilleland

Plenty of comment herefrom past post.

PHcp

I use a small micro fibre cloth from the pound shop and a good quality cotton hand towel.
The cloth gets me nearly dry and the proper towel is far better for the last bit than any of the expensive camping towels I've had. The two together pack in about the same size as a large travel towel. The only downside is that the cotton one is slower to dry.

Magnus Thor

I've been using a "Pack Towl" from Cascadedesigns for the last few years. The trick to using it is to get it wet before you start drying yourself off. Wring the water out of it, dry yourself, wring it again, dry again and so forth. Gets you quite dry. I usually enter the shower in my cycling shorts and rinse them off, then after I wring most of the water out of them, I wrap them in the Pack Towl and wring them again, that way the shorts are almost dry when I hang them out by my tent.
The good thing about these packtowels is that they work even when wet, since you can just keep wringing them and using them again...


Magnus Thor
Iceland

ut_och_cykla

Agree with Magnus - tho' rest of family hated theirs I love my pack towl. Doesn't get 'siffy after a few days of dampness either.

kluged

I bought a Tesco OneBody sport-towell the other day. I've only used it once but think it's pretty good. It cost 4.99.

I'll reiterate the previous advice that you need to keep wringing them out as you dry yourself off.

Squeak191

I own one of the Life Venture soft-fibre towels and whilst they are great as they do pack up small - you really need to get the biggest size you can afford. I'm a petite 5ft 3" and I have a Large size towel. I really wish I'd got XXL size towel!

daviddd

the Lifeventure ones are great - mines lasted for ages after much use still works very well, Dries very quickly too.

vernonlevy

ut_och_cykla wrote:

Agree with Magnus - tho' rest of family hated theirs I love my pack towl. Doesn't get 'siffy after a few days of dampness either.

They are great for drying the tent flysheet too!