Compact Camp Towels

Written on 03/02/2021
Abel Longoria

I've never even considered replacing my standard cotton bath towels until I camped out with a fellow TexasVanagons member Trey that showed me his Micro Fiber towel. I was impressed with how thin and compact it was and my hunt began to find the perfect Camp Towel. By perfect I mean a towel that was very absorbent yet inexpensively priced, less than $20 per towel. I found just that!

What I Used

  1. Youphoria Sport Towel - 20"x40" Grey/Pink
  2. Youphoria Sport Towel - 28"x56" Grey/Pink
  3. Youphoria Sport Towel - 20"x40" Grey/Blue
  4. Youphoria Sport Towel - 28"x56" Grey/Blue

I purchased four towels in total made by a company named Youphoria Sport Towels. As an added bonus, if you're a Amazon Prime Member it's FREE SHIPPING! Perfect.

These Youphoria Sport Towels are offered in 3 sizes: 20"x40", 28"x56" and 32"x72". They're also offered in 7 different color choices. I opted for the Grey/Pink for Lesa and the Grey/Blue for me. Then I chose 2 sizes of each, the 20"x40" as a "hair towel" and a 28"x56" as a "body towel". If you have a family of 4 or so you too can color coordinate your towels as there are 7 to choose from.

The first thing I noticed when receiving the towels in the mail was that they were very small and compact. I mean I knew they'd be smaller but I didn't realize how small. Here's a 28"x56" Towel next to a full sized Cotton Towel 28"x52" that we normally keep in the van. As you can see this is a huge difference.

You can get at least 6 of these 28"x56" sized towels in the space of one standard sized cotton towel. Immediately I begin to think how much room I'll be saving in my van by using these new camp towels as opposed to the old cotton ones.

Here's all 4 towels I purchased to keep in the van. Noticed the off coloring on the towel second from the left? We'll get to that soon.

Each towel comes with it's own mesh bag for storage. I recommend letting the towels fully dry before placing them back into their storage bags. In fact, you may even find yourself not using the storage bags at all. Just depends on your level of OCD when packing your van. Hehe.

Here are the 2 different 28"x52" towels I purchased. I was bummed that it seemed the Grey/Pink towel on the right was way different than the Grey/Blue one on the left. The Grey/Pink towel was a lot thicker, a bit heavier and even a bit rougher to the touch as the grey/blue counterpart. Oh and the hanging loop on the Grey/Pink towel did not have a place to unsnap it, it was a fixed sewn loop.

I immediately emailed the seller BDS Outlets about the product that didn't match the others and they quickly replied. It was an older design that they thought had been completely removed from their inventory but this one slipped through the cracks. They refunded me the price of the towel, shipped me a new replacement towel completely free of charge and didn't require me to ship back the older version. Wow. So keep this in mind, if one arrives that looks like the older model give BDS Outlets an email and they'll make it right. I was very impressed with their customer service, I even got a hand written Thank You card for purchasing their products and apologized for the mix up. Top notch customer service indeed!

Here are the 2 grey/blue towels side by side. The microfiber is super soft and nice to the touch. This brand of micro fiber isn't like the micro fiber cloths I'm used to getting at the local auto parts store. Those tend to snag on my fingertips and feel scratchy to the skin. Youphoria Sport Towels feel very smooth and comfortable. Oh and did I mentioned these towels are SUPER absorbent. They offer a larger 32"x72" size as well but I felt fine with the 28"x52" size as my main bath towel. In fact I even used a smaller 20"x40" towel at one point and it worked well.

The towels have a nice little hanging loop which allows you to hang the towel up so it can dry. The loop has a snap to it so it can easily be undone and snapped around a clothes line or something similar.

Here's my Youphoria Sport Towel - 28"x56" Grey/Blue while showering at El Cosmico in Marfa, Texas. These towels are awesome! I mean I can't say enough about them. They're super compact which now lets me leave the 2-3 larger cotton towels at home and have that much more storage space in my van. We all know how valuable Vanagon storage space is!

After a shower we hang our micro fiber camp towels over the main cross bar of the pop top assembly. On average our towels were fully dried in about 30 minutes! Our cotton towels not so much. They took hours to air dry and sometimes wouldn't even dry out by morning. Having these micro fiber towels dry so quickly meant we could get them folded back up and out of the way.

I highly recommend trying these towels out and see how they compare to your current setup. I know for me, it's a big win since they're so much more compact than the regular bath towels that I've been carrying around.