It has always been my experience that your hotel provides towels. Even a positively ghastly hotel in St Pet about 15 years ago had towels - plenty of them (although they ranged from bath mats to dish towels in an incredible array of colors and patterns). Many were quite worn - but all were usable.

(But I know some hostels don't - is that what you're thinking of?.)

If you must take your own towel, I would take a Sammy.

Hostels don't always, campground cabins don't, sometimes you need a towel while hiking or biking--I seriously doubt the OP doesn't realize that hotels provide towels. How weird to take him/her to task about that.

Eagle Creek makes the best one!

I prefer regular towels, to the chamois type travel fabric, just take old ones that are very thin.

We are traveling to Sicily. It has been our past experience there that hotels provide one very very thin towel per person (almost a dish towel weight). We want an extra small towel each - microfiver type that is super absorbent and quick drying. I am just trying to choose between brands - Eagle Creek - -Rick Steeves - etc.

See, I knew there was a good reason! My cold, wet stay in Venice was really marred only by the lack of a proper towel, so I am with you all the way. Good luck!

This may be a dumb question, but why not buy a pack of the smallish Costco microfiber cleaning cloths- the whole pack would take up less space than one real towel, they're cheap, and you would have clean towels to boot (and you could toss them as they're used).

Space is very limited - so I was trying to pack only one resuable microfiber towel. Do you think those cleaning cloths are the same thing as the "travel towels" sold on travel web sites? There's a huge difference in price! My husband has those Costco towels in his workshop! Maybe I'll test one out and see how quick it dries and how much it absorbs. Another hint about traveling to Italy (or anywhere)-----I save several "almost gone" ends of toilet paper rolls and bring them along. Each day I throw one in my backpack. It is amazing how many toilets in Italy have NO paper! I have also helped out a few desperate strangers with my mini roll of paper!

We bought some travel towels at REI (don't remember brand name). They were compact and dried fast but were more like a regular towel than the chamois kind.

I have a question about the Costco towels. I have heard of them, but can't seem to find them. Are they in the usual towel/bedding area or somewhere else?

I use one of those Aqueis (sp?) towels for my hair at home, but think that might be what you are looking for. I got mine at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Dorgal- Why not just carry those little packs of travel kleenex? Wouldn't that be more compact than rolls of toilet paper? (or maybe i'm missing something here)

Oh and I'm curious, are you staying in places that you know do not provide towels, or you just want to have an extra one along?