Posts Tagged travel towel
Chawel: The CHAnge Anywhere ToWEL (Get it?)
We write a lot about items that pull double duty here at Practical Travel Gear. After all, who wants to be schlepping around multiple items in multiple (heavy) bags when you’re backpacking through Europe or even hopping on a plane for a quick weekend getaway. The Chawel — the “CHAnge Anywhere ToWEL” — claims to serve multiple purposes: towel, sleeping bag/blanket, travel/neck pillow and changing room. Yes, changing room.
Chawels come in two styles: the Chawel Traveller is microfleece on one side and light terrycloth on the other; the Chawel Sport has two sides made from antibacterial polyester and compresses small into a mesh stuff sac. Both towels are made from two large pieces of material sewn together, with a large opening at the bottom and a slit at the top. This design allows you to slide the Chawel over your head, covering your body in full if, say, you needed to change out of a wet bathing suit on the beach and there are no dressing rooms nearby (or you are too lazy to walk to the bathhouse or you have a kid who has to get out of a sandy two-piece right now).
Each type of Chawel has a slit pocket on the side to store a wallet, iPod or other flat, small things in when you’re at the beach and want to leave your towels on the sand to play in the waves. Each Chawel also comes with attached stretchy bands so you can roll it up and secure the roll with elastic. The band can also be used when you are rolling it lengthwise into a long tube and then folding into a U-shape to create a neck roll for the plane.
Finally, a nice dry Chawel makes for a blanket on a chilly plane (I suggest not slipping it over your head while seated unless you want some funny looks). It can also serve as a sleep sack in a hostel. Or, slip it over a single, thin camping mattress for extra protection and comfort.
No doubt the Chawel is a clever product. Certainly you could sew together some (cheap) beach towels yourself to create an instant dressing room-slash-sleep sack — but are you really going to take the time to do that?
I sampled both of the Chawels after a shower at home, and I’ll be honest: the snag-free, lightweight polyester on the Sport version isn’t terribly absorbent. The terry side of the Traveller (pictured in purple at right) soaks up much more water.
I think the image on the front of the Sport towel — a headless woman in a bathing suit (when you put it over your head, she then has a face) — is silly. I’d prefer a plain Chawel to one with a goofy design like that.
Chawels come in two sizes, medium and large (large is best for adults — medium for kids or petite grown-ups). Price range from $29.95 to $44.95 depending on size and style. Purchase from the online site or a few brick-and-mortar retailers (mostly in British Columbia; the manufacturer is based in Vancouver).
Posted by Kara in Travel Light on November 22nd, 2011
Grand Trunk Travel Towels
My method for travel towels is usually to rely on the hotel. Or, to take the ones from home that really need to be replaced, tossing them at the end of the trip. Sometimes, I pick up a cheap beach towel from a general store. I’d not given much thought to pack towels before my recent travels to Tanzania. There was to be a lot of camping, limited space, and a need for things to dry quickly. I got two towels from Grand Trunk, their bamboo travel towel and their pack towel. After some fussing, I opted to take the pack towel.
This was, I think, a mistake.
At first use, the pack towel seemed like a thing I’d like. It’s well designed enough, it’s got button holes so you can wear it as a sarong, a drying loop, a little stuff bag, and it’s made from a quick dry fiber. It packs down to very small; there’s no problem finding space for in in the luggage. Thing is, I didn’t like the way it feels. It seems nice enough to the touch at first, but it gets a weird plastic-y surface when it’s in use. And it didn’t really work — I felt like I was just dabbing water off the surface of my skin rather than getting dry. I was always slightly damp. It’s a towel and I felt like I was using it wrong. Did I mention that it’s a towel? How can you use a towel wrong?
I wish I’d packed the bamboo travel towel instead. While it takes up, oh, six times the space, it has all the features of the pack towel — the buttons, the hanging loop, the stuff bag — it’s made from a much friendlier material. It does take a bit longer to dry, but given that my pack towel felt perpetually damp after the first use, it wouldn’t have made a difference to me. On the whole, the bamboo towel just feels nicer and it completes the very basic task of getting you dry.
In short, the pack towel, no, thanks. The bamboo travel towel, yes, please.
Just for cross reference, here’s a pack towel that fellow reviewer Tim rather liked.
Grand Trunk products are available on Amazon. The pack towel starts around 21.99 , the travel towel for 39.99
Posted by Pam in Adventure Gear, Travel Light on September 30th, 2011
Travel Towels That Actually Work
I’ve tried more than a few travel towel solutions in my two decades of traveling and I can say with no reservations that most of them really sucked. They’ll do the job as a sweat rag at the gym or to buff your car after waxing, but they usually either feel nasty or don’t really absorb enough.
This Discovery Trekking towel made from Polartec fabric is the best one I’ve put next to my skin and it does a serviceable job of getting the water off. It still doesn’t measure up to a nice cotton one in a hotel room, but if you’ve tried lugging one of those along you know that it’s not a practical solution when you’re packing light and staying at cheapo guesthouses and hostels.
The towels are made from odor-free Polartec fabric with silver—so the bacteria-killing part never washes out. They simulate the “normal” towel experience by not being completely slick on both sides. Little tufts, like a normal towel, whisk the water away from your skin, so you can dry off in a regular fashion. When you’re done though, the towel dries three times as fast as a cotton one, great for when you’re on the move. They weigh next to nothing (only 4 ounces for the backpacker version) and don’t take up a lot of space, so they’re a good choice for a round-the-world journey or a trip where you’re going to be river rafting or camping.
For now you can just get these travel towels at the Discovery Trekking site, but soon they’ll be stocked at REI as well. They come in a wide range of colors and in different sizes—smaller ones that soak up the sweat at the gym and larger ones for after a shower. Prices range from $13 to $30, but check out the clearance section if you don’t care about the color.
Posted by Tim L. in Kids and Family, Travel Light on June 11th, 2009
