Best Travel Towel for Hostels or Just Rent One

For a hostel trip of a week or longer, the cheapest microfiber towel beats both renting and packing a cotton bath towel. The decision rests on one number. Hostelworld puts the typical bath towel rental at €1 to €3 per rental, so a week of nightly rentals comes to €7 to €21. Treeline Review lists the Rainleaf microfiber towel, its budget pick, at $10 to $22.

The pricier towels are not better buys for most hostel travelers. They are lighter or better packaged, and that is worth paying for only when grams or a single fixed size matter more than money. A regular cotton towel is the worst option of the three: it costs nothing extra and charges for that in space and smell.

Whether a hostel charges at all is unpredictable. Hostelworld's own breakdown of hostel extras says bed linen is almost always included, bath towels are roughly a 50/50 proposition, and beach towels are almost never free. Where a fee applies, it lands in the €1 to €3 range. Hostelz lists actual properties: Casa Barcelo in Barcelona charges €2 per towel, Zen Hostel Brasil in São Paulo charges R$5 for a bath towel, and three Chiang Mai hostels charge 30 to 50 baht. Iceland sits at the top of the range. Nomadic Matt's Iceland budget guide reports towel fees starting at 500 ISK at hostels and at the Blue Lagoon and Myvatn Nature Baths, which he converts to roughly $3.50 to $4.

Two details change the arithmetic. Some fees are charged per stay, not per night: Hostelz lists Baan Lung Poshtel at 50 baht and The Cabin Backpackers at 40 baht as one-off charges, which barely register on a month in Thailand. Deposits also tie up cash. Whoopers Hostel in Chiang Mai asks for a 200 baht deposit against a 30 baht rental. The deposit is refunded, but it is money a traveler on a fixed budget does not hold until checkout.

The cotton towel costs nothing at the register. Matt Kiefer of Hostelgeeks advises against it outright, saying standard cotton towels turn smelly after three to five uses when they cannot dry properly, which describes most dorms. Nomadic Matt calls regular towels too bulky, too heavy and slow to dry. In a bag already sized for hostels and budget airlines, that bulk takes space the clothes need.

The brief for this piece also named the PackTowl Personal. None of the sources available to this site publishes a size, weight or price for it. The only PackTowl product covered is the PackTowl Poncho, at $70 and 18.0 oz in Treeline Review's towel guide, and that is a different product for a different purpose. The Personal is therefore left out here. Weight is missing from the table for the same reason: no source here gives one for the Rainleaf.

Treeline Review names the Rainleaf its best budget towel at $10 to $22. It reports that the towel absorbs five times its own weight in water and comes in six sizes. Land of the Traveler gives the size range as 12 by 24 inches up to 40 by 72 inches and says it carries a lifetime warranty. Road Affair describes an anti-microbial treatment and a mesh zippered carry bag. The complaints are about feel, not function. Treeline finds it stiffer than rivals and calls the stuff sack unnecessary, and Land of the Traveler says it is very thin and may bleed color on the first wash. A pre-trip wash deals with the second point. Buy it if the goal is to stop paying hostel towel fees for the least money.

Treeline Review's best-for-backpacking pick costs $16 to $43 depending on size. The medium weighs 3.5 oz, and the towel is made of 80% recycled polyester and 20% nylon microfiber. It comes with a mesh storage pouch. Treeline finds it less soft than competing towels and notes that it sheds microplastics, a fault it shares with the Rainleaf. The DryLite has the lowest published weight among the three towels here, which is the main reason to choose it. Buy it if the pack is already at its weight limit and a few ounces matter more than a few dollars.

Treeline Review lists the NanoDry at $39 and 5.6 oz and calls it "the lightest towel we tested and incredibly quick drying." It ships with a protective silicone case and a carabiner, so a damp towel can clip to the outside of a bag. The same guide gives the DryLite medium at 3.5 oz, so Treeline's two weight figures do not look like a like-for-like comparison. A reader choosing on weight should go by the stated ounces, not the label. The real limit is that the NanoDry comes in one size and one color, with limited modesty coverage, and nothing can be done about that after purchase. Buy it if the case and carabiner solve a real problem on the route and a small towel is acceptable.

The first difference is payback time. At Casa Barcelo's €2, a $10 Rainleaf costs about as much as a week of nightly rentals. The NanoDry's $39 equals 39 nights at Hostelworld's lowest €1 fee, before any exchange rate is applied. A traveler on a two-week trip pays that towel off only if nearly every hostel charges. The rental argument works for the cheapest towel and fades quickly as the price goes up.

The second difference is size. The Rainleaf comes in six sizes, from a hand towel to a 40 by 72 inch sheet, and the DryLite comes in several. The NanoDry comes in one. For the many dorm showers where the walk back to the bunk crosses a corridor, a towel that covers the body is a practical need.

The third difference is weight, and it matters less than the marketing suggests. Land of the Traveler sets a ceiling of 10 oz for towel plus case. Both published weights here, 3.5 oz and 5.6 oz, come in well under it. Once a towel is below that line, the extra ounces cost less than the extra dollars.

The strongest case for renting comes from Hostelgeeks. Matt Kiefer writes that "a decent hostel will rent you a towel for next to nothing" and that a fresh towel from the hostel each time is good hygiene. Exponential Travels adds that HI Hostels and other upscale or chain properties are more likely to include towels at no charge. A traveler who stays only at such places, or who is booked into Chiang Mai hostels with one-off fees of 40 or 50 baht, will spend less on rentals than on even the cheapest towel. That is true, and it is a narrow case. Hostelworld calls bath towels a coin flip, TravelClubReview names towel charges at check-in as a common surprise, and a traveler who has not confirmed every property's policy is betting a fixed budget on that coin. A towel that can be washed in a sink, and the Rainleaf costs little enough to replace if it wears out, settles the hygiene point without the bet.

Buy the Rainleaf in a mid size for any hostel trip of a week or more. On the published fees, it costs about the same as a week of nightly rentals and keeps saving money after that. Choose the Sea to Summit DryLite instead if pack weight is the binding constraint, since its 3.5 oz medium is the lowest published weight here. Choose the Matador NanoDry only if its case and carabiner are worth $39 and a single small size will do. Leave the cotton bath towel at home. Rent only if the trip is short and every hostel on the itinerary has confirmed, in the Important Information section of its listing, that towels are free or charged once per stay.

Before buying anything, look up the towel policy for each hostel booked. If more than half charge per night, the cheapest towel pays for itself before the trip ends.