Drylite Towel, Lightweight Camping and Travel Towel

I purchased the Large Sea to Summit DryLite Towel in Cobalt Blue back in 2011. My main interest in purchasing the towel was for emergency preparedness and, more importantly, backpacking trips. This towel has come in rather handy for backpacking and camping trips. In looking for quality and low weight options for backpacking, I came across Sea to Summit and went down the rabbit hole of pack gear on offer. I knew I would be hitting the trail into Havasu Pai and knew this trip would require an easy to lug around towel. If you are not aware, Havasu Pai is an oasis 10 miles from the North rim of the Grand Canyon. There are waterfalls, rivers for wading and stunning blue natural pools to soak in after a long day of the trails. It is only accessible by trail (or helicopter for part of the way) so you have to be prepared to pack everything in that you want to use. I was not looking for a full size, luxury hotel towel, I was looking for a fit-for-purpose towel for a quick dry after a day in the water. This towel fit the bill. Things to note, microfiber towels are most effective if you pat down the area you want to dry. This is how I dry off regardless of what type of towel I use, so it was not a big change for me. If you are used to rubbing your towels across your body to dry off, you might find this towel dragging more than gliding. For me, this towel has been effective in drying skin and hair. I have a lot of hair, so I need something to bundle the whole of it and help grip the drips. A "large" backpacking towel is a far cry from a large bath towel, and this is a fine detail to note. I was not looking for a towel to wrap around my body, or to use as a shield for changing. If you need this, look carefully at the dimensions to find a towel that will fit your needs. This "large" towel will probably not be it. After use, this towel dries incredibly fast. I aid in the quick dry process by laying the towel out as flat as possible in places where the air flows freely. I am often camping or hiking in warm climates, so the warm air and sun also help. I've also looped this through a belt or pack loop and let dry while I keep hiking and it dries pretty quickly. This towel has held up pretty well against the elements, including multiple trips to Havasu Pai and hitting the lap swim pools at home (which I believe have mostly been saltwater chlorination systems). I have not experienced any mold or mildew growth. I have not experienced any funk or lingering smell on the towel. I have not experience any other mineral buildup, which is great. I was a bit worried about that, with the heavy concentration of calcium carbonate in the waters at Havasu Pai. This is the mineral that gives the waters their amazing color, but the sediment also builds up in your hair, in your clothing and in everything it touches while you swim these waters. It is great while you are there, but a beast to remove from everything when you get home (think travertine, think limestone, now you get the picture). This towel has not retained the mineral build-up. Phew. One thing I do to help minimize retention of smells and limit static is to add vinegar when I wash my clothes. The vinegar smell does not stay with the clothes. This may have helped to keep my towel smell free, but it all in all I am pleased with the retained freshness of this towel. I usually air dry this towel, but I think it made it into the machine dryer a time or two without issue. The structure of this towel is still intact. There are no holes or no tears in the fabric. I have not experienced any fading, bleeding, pilling or fraying. I store the towel in my hiking pack, so I know where it is. It is lightweight and takes up very little room. I like the performance of Sea to Summit goods so far, including this towel. I would recommend and will look to Sea to Summit again if I need to replace this towel.

I've used this towel a few times so far and it is working great for what I wanted it for. I wanted to start riding my bike to/from work. I have showers at my workplace, so I planned to take a shower once I got to work. The first time I tried my bike commute, I packed a regular towel in my backpack. That thing took up so much space it was ridiculous. So I wanted to find something that I could put in my pack that wouldn't take up the entire bag. This DryLite towel is awesome. I got the medium and it takes up the space of a t-shirt rolled up in my bag. It is also awesome because it dries me off a lot quicker and better than a regular towel, which is nice when you are trying to out of shower and into your work clothes quickly. I also used this towel in the gym showers, which again was nice when I was trying to hurry back to work I could dry off fast. It dries pretty quickly, so I'm going to experiment with leaving it my locker and see how it does in there. I think it would be a good candidate for a towel that you could leave in a gym locker for a couple of days (if you have a rented one or something) so that wouldn't have to bring one everyday. This towel has a little loop with a snap on it so that you can hang it on a hook without it bunching up, and also snap it on to any kind of loop, bar, etc. for hanging. I imagine that would be handy for backpacking or traveling. The only thing you can't use this for is covering yourself up. I see that some people bought XLs for that purpose. I got a medium, because I wanted something to take up the least room and still soak up plenty of water. I can not use this towel to cover my shame outside the shower, which is mostly fine because the shower I usually use at work has a little changing area inside the door. The medium is not even long enough to wear around your body, top or bottom half. So depending on your situation, you might want to consider the right size for you. And as others have said, it is not a soft fluffy towel that you can rub around on your body like you do with a bath towel. You kind of do more of a blotting kind of action. But it sucks up water so well, you pretty much just press it on and you are dry. If you are looking for a thirsty little towel that won't take up space in a bag, I highly recommend this one.

This drylite town is perfect size for laying on the benches at my local gym. It saves me the time from wiping down station to station. I love this thing!

I highly recommend my DryLite towels an effective and compact portable towel that dries you adequately and dries out quickly; However, be aware it does not dry a body like a cotton bath towel. Normal bath towels scrub and rub and buff you completely dry. They don't stick to you. You have to press them on your body. (Think: "He-heee that tickles! OK, let's put on some clothes!") This is not the DryLite experience. At its best, in drier air, the DryLite feels like buffing yourself with super-lightweight suede leather. At its worst, in a really humid steamy shower room, it feels like a clingy micro-sued cloth that gets damp and grabs and skids over your wet skin until you peel it off. In both cases it feels like your skin air dries a moment after the towel is removed. This is highly effective but sort of unsettling until you mentally adjust to the wet-suede-rubbing feeling. (Think: "Wait was I just licked by a moist calf tongue or...? Oh hey, I'm dry!") While I would never admit to my girlfriend that I actually like that sensation, and I'm not sure that I do, I can completely justify paying good money for an approximately 2-foot by 4-foot towel that I can dunk completely under water, wring out well, hang dry and pack in 45 minutes. I'm 6' 210 average body type, and I can wrap it around my waist and change my clothes underneath. It rolls up and packs in my small toiletry kit with razor, comb, deodorant, camp soap, band aid box, sunscreen, etc. So far, I've used it about a week on the road, and I'm going to take it wherever I go camping again or swimming even. Five-star travel/packable effectiveness. Three-star towel feel. Useful and effective, but they still leave you wondering if you like using them or not.

We live in Michigan and enjoy an annual backpacking camp trip on the dunes of Lake Michigan. We have used the chamois type of towels, that are essentially the size of a wash cloth but very absorbent. We've also brought actual beach towels-talk about weight and space! I shopped around for awhile and it seemed like the other options just didn't have the quality we were going to need. We bought 2 XL in eucalyptus (I heard the other colors run). I gave them a wash with our other tiny camp towels before our trip to reduce the color issues and all was fine on that front. As for the XL size, well, I'm a petite gal and love a big towel; I was able to fit laying down on the beach no problem! My boyfriend, is about 6'3" with a waist size 38. His first size test before we left was to see if he could wrap and tuck it in around his waist, and it was certainly able to do that no problem! The material is soft, I used it as a wrap around blanket at times. Now about the wicking/absorbency; it definitely wicked well. However, as we were coming out of the water onto a sunny beach, we really weren't all that drenched. So, had I wrapped my soaking wet hair in it would have had a much better test of absorbency and drying. It dried decently overnight and was fine the next day, but always better after some sun and wind on the beach. It did the job fine. We barely used our other towels (just to dry off our dog and some dishes). Overall, these particular towels were soft, big, didn't run, wicked well, dried overnight, and seem like they are going to last for a good many more beach trips to come! Worth the price and glad we bought it!

I keep this lightweight towel in my luggage and use it when traveling, for my hair specifically. With hair that will frizz if I use a regular Terry cotton towel, I don't want to pack and carry a special towel just for my hair. I'm sure it would work great for other people drying uses but it does exactly what I needed for my hair. It's mostly dried out before I even leave my hotel room after getting ready. It packs small and dries enough that I can pack it without mildewing issues until I reach my next destination or home to air it out again, use it more, or wash it. It doesn't require special treatment - I wash it like other towels and it's fine.

Got this for a 28 day backpacking trip through Europe. GET THE LARGE! I have a 34" waist and I could wear it (as long as I was careful), yet it still rolled up small enough that I could stuff it in a sock. It'll get you plenty dry. Not bone dry, but comfortably dry. I have short/medium hair and a quick rubbing helped a lot. Can't tell you how handy the snap-close loop is for hang-drying. Just don't forget it when you leave, people do this ALL. THE. TIME. The towel dries quite quickly. I'd usually leave it out for 30 minutes while I packed and checked out of my hostel. That got it dry enough that I could put it in my bag, but I'd usually take it back out when I got to my next hostel. After a month of this it wasn't exactly "fresh" (had a hint of "person" smell to it), but it wasn't by any means unpleasant. Didn't need to wash it the whole way through, though I'm a pretty serious scrubber when I'm in the shower. My travel-mate's, for instance, takes 7-minute showers and ended up washing his after 3 weeks because it was getting a bit funky. He had a McNett MicroNet, which he was happy with, but I never used so I couldn't compare it with the DryLite. The texture was a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a "rubbery" kind of feel, like an auto/boat chamois, but it's reasonably soft and doesn't "stick" to you while you dry off, you can slide it over yourself fairly smoothly. I don't recommend putting it in the dryer, my mom did this without my consent and the texture feels odd now (though I haven't tested to see if it still works as well). All in all, 5 stars. I'm now a firm believer in travel towels, and proud of my little blue DryLite.

Does a great job, as expected it would. Each time I use it I falsely think it won't be enough to complete the job, because it always is. It's a luxury backpacking item.