Today we’re taking a look at the Airlite travel towel from Sea to Summit. My main travel towel has up until not been the Sea to Summit Pocket Towel which I really like due to the compact size and its quick drying properties. This Airlite towel however is 40% lighter than the Pocket Towel and I dries a little bit faster too. The towel does have a very thin and light feeling texture to it. Its slightly rougher feeling than the Pocket Towel but absorbs water in the same way. It also packs down into an overall much smaller and lighter package than the Pocket Towel. The airlite towel also has a button on the corner so you can affix it to the included stuff sack.
The Airlite towel comes in 4 different sizes as you can see here. Starting from a ‘small’ handkerchief size to an ‘extra large’ full body towel size. I went with the ‘large’ and it only just is big enough to wrap around the lower half of my body but the ‘extra large’ would be enough to wrap around your whole body. The Airlite towel is advertised mainly as a sport or travel ‘dish towel’ but I found it to be more than adequate as my main travel towel. The biggest advantage over the Pocket Towel is just how much smaller it packs up and how much faster it dries.
It absorbs 3 times its weight in water and due to the texture it dries super fast too. It dries totally in less than an hour and in some conditions about half an hour depending how saturated it gets. I found that after drying off from a shower and hanging it to dry in the bathroom it would dry in roughly 30 to 40 minutes. You can also speed up the process by wringing out the extra water and it will feel dry almost immediately. In my testing I haven’t found it to develop any smells or bad odours like I see people complain about other microfibre towels.
The price is somewhat high for a towel and starts at USD$25 (AUD$36) for the small and USD$32 (AUD$46) for the ‘extra large’. But I think that for the features, lightweight and compact, quick drying design that it’s certainly worth it for such high quality fabric. I’ll definitely be packing this towel over my Pocket Towel for every future trip.
