5 Best Microfiber and Quick Dry Travel Towels (2023)

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If you’re tired of traveling with soggy cotton towels that tear easily, then it’s time you got yourself some microfiber travel towels for your next trip.

In this guide, we’re going to look at the best microfiber and quick-dry travel towels on the market, so that you can pack your towels with confidence.

We’ll also look at the technology behind the microfiber towel, and how it dries so quickly.

Table of Contents

Best Travel Towels

Top Pick

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Quick Picks

Don’t have time to read this article? Then don’t worry. Here are some quick picks to get you to the right towel, with minimal effort or fuss:

I want a strong, durable towel for outdoor activities:	Wise Owl Outfitters Camping Towel
I want a vibrant, fun towel, for the beach and Instagram:	Eccosophy Microfiber Beach Towel
I want a travel towel I can also use for workouts and at the gym:	OlimpiaFit Fast Quick Dry Ultra Compact Towel Set
I want a towel specifically for yoga:	Shandali GoSweat Non-Slip Hot Yoga Towel
I want a towel manufactured in an eco-friendly way:	Nature Is Gift 100% Natural Turkish Cotton Towel

Getting Started with Travel Towels

‘A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have,’ according to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams.

And if a towel is massively useful for interstellar travel, it’s going to be even more massively useful for travel on Planet Earth!

Sure, towels are not the most invigorating topic of conversation when it comes to travel, but a towel is still a very useful and important item to travel with.

Due to microfiber technology and other improvements, there is a wide range of towels on the market today that serve the needs of travelers and those who do plenty of other activities.

Gone are the days when you have to re-roll up a sodden, sweat-laden cotton towel and place it back into your rucksack.

Now, courtesy of microfiber, towels for travel are practical, compact, lightweight, and something that many travelers simply do not travel without.

What is a Microfiber Towel?

Microfiber is a synthetic fiber, with a diameter of a fifth of the width of a human hair.

Together, these incredibly fine fibers come together by the billions in an array of different materials, such as polyester and polyamide.

Because the fibers are so compactly assembled, this makes the resultant material incredibly tough, durable, and, most importantly, liquid absorbent and quick drying.

As you can imagine, microfibers are used in products for a range of purposes.

But due to these characteristics, they make a great towel for a traveler, backpacker, or gym-goer, on the go, who need to carry their towel with them.

Breakdown of Travel Towel Sizes

When shopping for travel towels, you’ll often have to select your desired size. Often, it’s very difficult to visualize the dimensions listed, or not know what the size from XS-XL, actually look like.

Particularly if you’re traveling light, or if you travel with a carry-on, you’re going to want a compact towel that doesn’t take up too much space.

Here’s a quick breakdown of sizes to give you a better idea of what to buy.

XS or Small

At this size, picture a washcloth you would use to clean kitchen or bathroom surfaces with.

Or a hand towel, like the ones you’ll get in hotels, rolled up on top of the larger towels.

At this size, they’re great for wiping the sweat off your brow, or liquid from your limbs. But you’re going to struggle if you need to wrap yourself in the towel or want to wipe down your whole body.

Medium

Medium-sized towels you’re most likely to find people using at the gym.

They’re not big enough to wrap fully around you, say, after coming out of the shower, but cover a large enough area to wipe your back, front, and limbs, firmly and quickly.

Large

Once you get to large-sized towels, you now have enough material to wrap around you with ease.

Large towels you would use to wrap around your wet hair, or body when coming out of the shower. Commonly, they’d be called bath towels online.

XL and above

Once you’re into the XL and above range, you’re now looking at towels with a surface area that exceed the height and width of your body.

These are towels that are great for using as beach towels, yoga mats, or for wrapping around yourself in particularly treacherous, wet conditions, where you can pretty much cover your entire body.

Great to have with you, but be wary of their size. Even though most travel towels come rolled and compact, XL and above towels may be larger than your compact carry-on. Be sure to check the dimensions.

Best Travel Towel Picks

Now that we’re clued up on what microfiber towels are and do, and their sizes, let’s take a look at some of the best towels on the market.

For those of you that prefer other types of towels, I have included a non-microfiber pick on the list too. See the table of contents for more details.

Best All-Round Microfiber Towel for Travel

For a great microfiber towel that is durable, quick-drying, compact, and strikes a perfect balance between quality and price, look no further than our pick below.

1 – Wise Owl Outfitters Camping Towel

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Renowned in camping circles as a trusted brand, Wise Owl Outiffer’s camping towel is an excellent choice for your travel towel.

As part of the set, you get two towels for the price of one, which is a fantastic deal. In addition to a 12” x 24” towel, you also get a 12” x 12” square towel for good measure.

Both come with a convenient bag, so you can pack them up neatly and fit them into any luggage or carry-on.

Towel-wise, they’re incredibly soft and can soak up any liquid. Their quick-drying microfiber fabric means you can wipe the water off your body at the beach.

Or, you can swipe the sweat off your body after hot yoga, and quickly stow the towel back in your bag, with no problems.

You get a choice of seven colors, and the gorgeous marine blue is my preferred pick. Durable, unbelievably soft, and two towels in one, make Wise Owl Outfitters makers of an excellent travel towel.

Best Beach Towel for Travel

Beach towels often have to serve more than the simple function of drying you off. They need to cover a large area, be easily wiped down, and look elegant and beautiful.

While practically all large microfiber towels will serve the purpose of a beach towel, take a look below if you’re specifically looking for a dashing, vibrant, and incredibly practical beach towel.

2 – Eccosophy Microfiber Beach Towel

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Not many brands claim you can ‘own the beach’ with their products. But when you see Eccosophy’s microfiber towel designs, you’ll understand why they make that claim.

Complete with the durable, lightweight, and rapid water-absorbing and quick-drying properties of microfiber towels, Eccosophy’s towels act just as much a fashion statement as they do a practical towel.

One size at 71” x 37”, you have ample room to lay out on the sand, reach a book, or watch the waves lap and the world go by.

Their seven designs, named after glorious vacation destinations, such as Fiji and Cancun, are stunningly intricate patterns to behold.

Watch the likes on Instagram roll in as you pose on your luxurious beach towel.

Complete with its own lightweight pouch, this towel can just as easily be used at the gym or at yoga; if you’re willing to accommodate its large size.

Best Gym Towel for Travel

If you’re looking for something that doesn’t quite make the fashion statement of the beach towels but is incredibly absorbent, durable, and lightweight, this microfiber towel option can work well for the traveler who likes to work out on a regular basis.

3 – OlimpiaFit Fast Quick Dry Ultra Compact Towel Set

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Big and highly-regarded in the gym community, OlimpiaFit’s great value 3-in-1 microfiber towel set is an excellent choice if you can carry multiple towels for multiple needs.

As part of the set, you get three towels. The first, 50” x 30”, is your large option, and perfect for your full body activities, such as drying off after swimming, or using at yoga.

The second, 30” x 15”, is your medium-sized towel, and works well as your trusted towel to take hiking, backpacking, rainy or wet places, or simply to keep in your accommodation bathroom as a bath towel.

Finally, you also get a 15” x 15” square towel, which is great to use as a hand-drying towel, or out on hikes or the gym, to wipe the sweat off your brow or limbs.

The microfiber is antimicrobial, meaning it can absorb a mightly impressive 3-4 times its own weight, and they dry up to 10 times faster than any cotton towel.

The three towels are wondrously smooth against the skin on all parts of your body, and all three come with a loop to be easily hung.

The elastic strap allows for easy rolling, and with a choice of eight colors, you’ll most certainly look the business on any trail or in any locker room. For what you get for the price, it’s a fantastic option.

Best Yoga Towel for Travel

If you do a lot of yoga, you’ll know all about the irritations of having to carry a sweaty yoga mat to and from class. If you wipe it down with a towel, you then have to carry a sodden, stinky towel with you as well.

Take a closer look at our pick below for a microfiber towel that can be your go-to yoga mat whilst you’re out on the road.

4 – Shandali GoSweat Non-Slip Hot Yoga Towel

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With its super-soft suede microfiber composition, Shandali brings a fantastic yoga towel to the market with its GoSweat range.

Durable enough to be used as a yoga mat in its own right, the velvet texture is not only soft on the skin, it absorbs all the moisture, allowing to keep in pose during those intense yoga sessions without slipping.

Odorless, durable, and easily washable, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been using Shandli towels for your practice since they first came on the market.

The standard size covers 72” x 26.5”, which works perfectly as a mat or large towel, and there’s also a 26.5” x 16” hand towel option, too.

You get six easy-on-the-eye colors to choose from, with my personal pick being the teal towel.

Best Non-Microfiber Towel for Travel

Finally, take a look below at a towel that may not use microfiber materials, but still brings plenty of quick-dry, ultra-absorbent, and stylish design to the marketplace.

5 – Nature Is Gift 100% Natural Turkish Cotton Towel

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Our final stop on our tour of the best microfiber and quick dry towels for travel takes us to Nature Is Gift, and their luxurious, gorgeously designed multi-purpose Turkish cotton towel.

At 71” x 39”, you get a vast amount of soothingly soft Turkish cotton to lay your skin against.

If you’re big into eco-friendly products, this is a great towel for you to purchase.

The towels are made using OEKO-TEX certified dye yarn in Turkey, and a very eco-friendly as a result.

Incredibly absorbent and quick-drying, the towel is perfect for a range of activities on your travels, such as yoga, hiking, swimming, and taking to spas.

Due to their delicate touch, they can also be used as sarongs or scarfs. With thirty-five delicious designs to choose from, you’ll struggle for days to choose between the vibrancy and the cuteness of each and every towel.

If you want to do your bit for Mother Nature, this is the perfect towel to take on your travels with you.

Best Travel Towels Summary

Remember, Douglas Adams was a wise man. Don’t compromise on sodden towels that tear easily.

All the microfiber and quick-drying towels on this list serve a wide range of purposes, are lightweight to carry, and will keep you dry time after time.

Don’t get stuck with low-quality hotel and Airbnb towels: get yourself a towel that will last you a long time, and keep you dry in any situation.

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