Hotel Towels Are Awful. Travel With a Towel Poncho Instead.

Have you ever felt personally victimized by paper-thin, scratchy, too-small hotel towels? I know I have.

After a long day out exploring whatever new city or national park I’m visiting, I usually want nothing more than to take a hot shower, then lounge in my towel to lazily air-dry as I swipe through the day’s photos.

But as a women’s size 16, I’ve rarely found a hotel towel that actually closes around my hips—so more often than not, I’m tasked with drying off and getting dressed in a steamy bathroom right after I shower. It’s a sensory nightmare: The sandpaper-esque towels are rough and irritating on my sensitive skin and, ironically, they’re usually terrible at absorbing water, so my clothes end up sticking to my still-damp body.

It has driven me absolutely bonkers, but since I’ve never had room in my bags to pack my own fluffy towels, I’ve assumed this tiny towel conundrum was something I’d just have to muscle through with gritted teeth.

Until, that is, I accidentally found the perfect solution while hunting for a new swimsuit cover-up on Amazon: the Kfubuo Surf Poncho.