If you’ve never been to Hawaii, you may be wondering if you should pack beach towels or not. In this post, I’ll pass along a couple of tips to help you decide what to do.
First check to see if your hotel and/or condo provides beach towels for your use during your stay. Most resorts and condos do provide them. Just call the hotel or condo service directly and ask.
If your resort doesn’t offer towels then you should choose your towels wisely. Natalie Norton, Oahu Photographer and mom of three darling toddlers offers this towel advice:
Thick beach towels are the trend, however, here in Hawaii, with the humidity being what it is, you really may want to consider looking for thinner towels.
Thick towels are likely to remain damp throughout your vacation and thus get all stinky and yucky in just a couple of days. (Yes, “yucky”, I have 3 toddlers, so I know!)
It’s likely that you will not have access to a washer and dryer on your vacation, and even if you did, I SINCERELY hope that you spend your vacation at the beach and NOT at the laundromat washing towels!!
Thanks, Natalie, for that tip. So, for you seasoned Hawaii travelers, please tell me what do you do about beach towels when you travel to the Aloha State?
Sheila Beal
8 comments
We don’t usually pack beach towels for our trips, however, we normally pick some up at the ABC store while we’re on vacation. They almost always get donated to my cousin’s house during the summer anyway since we spend a lot of time at their pool. 🙂
Since we don’t spend too much time in the water when we go beach hopping on Maui, we opt for the heavier terry cloth beach towels. On our trips, they will mainly be used for stretching out on the sand and enjoying the sun more than anything, and the heavier ones seem to have less of a chance of blowing away with the wind and moving around in the sand (that could just be a myth, though).
Every once and awhile one of us will take a dip in the ocean just to cool off, and in that case, we just lay the towels out on the lanai in our room to dry in the sun.
The thinner towels are usually better since they dry so much faster in the sun.
If it is a little bit windy a little sand piled along the edge exposed to the wind should hold it in place. Just enough sand to keep the wind from getting under that edge.
As mentioned above any ABC store should carry a nice selection, a lot of the tourist shops will also carry them, but ABC will probably cost less.
Beach towels make great Hawaii vacation souvenirs so I would recommend leaving them at home and buying one or two once you arrive. You can buy them at almost any corner store in Waikiki or wherever. (I also prefer the thin ones)
@Kris: Where can I find an ABC store? (just kidding… I had to haha)
I second the ABC stores, or even Wal-Mart. They’re pretty cheap and can either be good souvenirs or just donated somewhere when you leave.
I agree about just buying here. Thin ones are easy to carry around. But for me, I like the thicker one – like Kris said – for sitting on the beach :). I also like to warp it around me when I get cold. I know it’s hard for some of you to imagine how one can get cold on a sunny Maui – but I do 😉
I was concerned earlier this year about my decision to bring those super absorbent, quick dry towels you can find in a camping store on our trip to Maui.
They not only were amazing at drying us off after boogie boarding, but were easy to keep clean.
The label says “MSR”, but I’m sure you can find them on REI.com or other camping websites.
They come in various decent sizes, and keeping off the sand is not a problem with them.
Lastly, they roll up smaller than most clothes, and why not use them as a blanket on the plane?
Aloha Everyone – I appreciate all your thoughts and opinions on beach towels. Who knew that this topic would generate such good conversation? 🙂
P.S. Sorry for my delayed response, I’ve been battling a nasty computer virus and have had to go several days without my computer or with very limited web access. Hopefully, my computer will be on the mend soon. 🙂