The best beach towels in 2025, tried and tested

CNN

21-05-2025

The best beach towels we tested
Best beach towel: Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel
Best budget beach towel: Huckberry Mediterranean Turkish Towel
Best beach towel for travel: Nomadix Original Towel The best beach towels are as vital to your beach and pool days as any other beach gear. The right beach towel may not make or break your beach experience, but it can enhance it, particularly if it's very absorbent, sand-repellent and travel-friendly.
With the warmer months fast approaching, it's the perfect time to shop for beach gear. But don't just focus on finding the most comfortable beach chairs, the most stable beach umbrellas or the sturdiest beach wagon; beach towels are just as important and shouldn't be an afterthought or something you quickly grab on your way to the checkout counter.
Although it's not the end of the world if you pick the cheapest one on the shelves at Walmart, it's still worth investing in one that ticks all the criteria and will last you a few good years. You'll also want something that feels soft on your skin, offers plenty of coverage and doesn't pill. It should also be sand-repellent so you don't take all that gnarly sand back to your car.
In addition to consulting a few experienced surfers on the matter, I gathered 11 of the most highly rated beach towels on the market and tested them poolside and beachside to help you find the best one to dry off with post-swim. In the end, only three made the cut.
Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel
This affordable beach towel from Mark & Graham doesn't get by its looks alone; it's also incredibly plush, super absorbent, fast-drying and quick to shake off sand. It's hard to believe it's affordable as it is.
Huckberry Mediterranean Turkish Towel
Out of all the Turkish beach towels I tested, I found the luxurious-feeling Huckberry Mediterranean towel is the best value for your money, and not just because of its under-$50 price tag.
Nomadix Original Towel
Though there were several travel-friendly towels in the roster, the Nomadix Original Towel beat them all by being not just super packable but also odor- and sand-resistant. As a bonus, it will set you back less than $50. It's hard to believe that the Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel is only $59. Yes, $59! I think it's not a leap to say that most people would assume it's an expensive towel. Soft, made of high-quality Aerospin cotton and with just the right thickness and amount of fluff, it feels like a luxe beach towel that would burn a hole in your pocket. Good thing it's not, though; it wouldn't have won the top spot otherwise, despite the boxes it ticked during testing — and boy, the number of them it ticked.
The Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel offers that plush and cozy feel of a traditional towel, which a lot of people prefer, and feels soft and gentle on the skin, which is always a plus. It isn't the longest beach towel in the roster, but at 40 by 68 inches, it offers enough coverage whether you're wrapping yourself in it or lying on it over sand.
It's also easy to clean — just machine-wash it on cold and tumble-dry on low. And while I can't truly speak on its longevity since I've only just spent a few weeks with it, I've machine-washed and dried it five times, and it still feels like new. There's no noticeable change in quality or color. The only damage it sustained during testing was when my cat, Arrow, decided it would be his new bed, and one of the threads got caught on his claw.
More importantly, the Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel was one of the best performers in my testing pool. It proved incredibly absorbent, and despite being on the thick side, it was quick-drying as well. Under the same sunny conditions as the other towels, it only took about 55 minutes to completely dry (it was around 90% dry after 40 minutes).
What's even more surprising is that the sand came off quite quickly. Because of its fluffy construction, it did trap more sand than the Turkish and microterry towels I tested, but most of that sand came off as soon as I lifted it off the ground. It just needed some light shaking to get rid of the stragglers. There's a caveat, though: If the towel is still wet, it'll take a bit more shaking to get the sand off.
This beach towel's only drawback is that it's not the most travel-friendly. It's not the least packable of the bunch, but I traveled twice with it, and it took up a sixth of my carry-on luggage space, which is still a lot. So if you don't want to sacrifice clothing space, it's not the best option (check out my best travel beach towel pick for that).
For the rest of your beach and pool towel needs, however, the Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel is truly the best option you can find.
The Huckberry Mediterranean Turkish Towel is so affordable for what it offers that it's truly hard to complain about the couple of things it missed the mark on. To start with what it does well, it's 100% Turkish cotton and $35, which is astoundingly cheap for a Turkish towel.
At 40 by 70 inches, it's also slightly bigger and offers more coverage than my top pick, the Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel. It's so thin and incredibly lightweight that you can pack it down to a size that fits in your purse, making it an ideal travel companion for your beach holidays.
It's also fast-absorbing, but its absorbency comes with one condition: Because it is thin, it can only absorb so much. Luckily, it boasts impressive quick-drying chops. In full sunlight on a cooler 70-something-degree-Fahrenheit day, it took only 30 minutes to dry about 90% and 40 minutes to dry completely. On a warm summer day, it'll likely dry even faster.
As far as its sand repellence, it's not too shabby. It does take a bit more effort to shake sand off, especially if parts of it are still damp, but at least you won't have to worry about tracking sand all over the house. My biggest complaint is that it doesn't feel plush or soft on the skin. Not that it feels rough, and it does get softer with every wash, but you might be disappointed if you're expecting an uber-luxe experience.
Still, you're getting more bang for your buck with the Huckberry Mediterranean Turkish Towel. There are cheaper beach towels out there, yes. As an example, the highly rated, top-selling Amazon Basics Cabana Stripe Beach Towel is $15 cheaper. However, it's not the best quality in my experience (see its review below), so you're better off shelling out a little more for the Huckberry, which will last you longer.
If you must travel with a beach towel, don't just go for something lightweight. For example, the Huckberry Mediterranean Turkish Towel technically counts as a travel towel (and a good one, too) because it won't take up too much space in your bag. However, there are a few things you'll want to consider other than portability.
Especially if you're going on a long trip, I think the $40 Nomadix Original Towel is a better choice for several reasons. Not to be confused with a microfiber towel, this softer microterry towel has odor-resistant properties, which is a good feature to have when you find yourself in a situation where doing laundry just isn't possible.
It's lightweight and extremely packable, of course — just roll it up tightly, and you can simply toss it in your beach tote. But even though it's thin, it's impressively absorbent and, unlike the Huckberry, can take in a lot of water. According to the Nomadix website, it can carry four times its weight in water. It's also better at repelling sand than the Huckberry. The sand comes off quickly, with some light shaking necessary if it's still damp.
During my tests, it did take slightly longer than the Huckberry to dry, taking about 44 minutes under direct sunlight in 76-degree weather to completely do so. But that's still really good, considering many of the beach towels I tested took 50 minutes or longer.
The only thing that might put some people off here is the feel. Like I mentioned above, the Nomadix Original Towel is a microterry towel, so while it is made of polyester materials like microfiber, it has a similar feel to terry cloth. That means that it's softer and gentler on the skin than microfiber towels. However, it's still not the plushest towel I've tested — this feels more like a utilitarian towel than one that offers a cozy, resort-like experience. Still, that's not a deal breaker, especially if your priority is to travel light and make your towel last the whole trip without needing to wash it.
I spent one full day at a private pool in Scottsdale and two full beach days in Los Angeles, as well as several washing and drying cycles and two round-trip flights, to test these 11 beach towels, which are among the highest-rated on the market.
What surprised me during testing was that while beach towel brands often highlighted their products' quick-drying ability, users seemed to care less about how quickly a beach towel dried and more about how much sand it traps and how easily you can shake it off.
According to Colin Leaf, a PhD candidate in the USC chemistry department and a lifelong surfer, 'Fast drying is nice, but honestly not really something I consider. I probably sound like a broken record, but it's how much sand sticks in the blanket. What you'll care about is filling every surface of your car with a layer of sand, which is impossible to get rid of.'
Video editor Lucy Green, who's been surfing since she was 12 and has racked up hundreds of hours at the beach, agreed. 'I don't care very much about fast drying,' said Green, 'but I do need my beach towels to keep away the sand.'
So, while fast drying is still a criterion that I tested and measured for the sake of beachgoers who do care about it, know that it wasn't as big of a priority in my testing as the others.
Here's a breakdown of my testing process.
Performance
Absorbency: This is a no-brainer. A towel needs to absorb water quickly and efficiently; otherwise, it kind of defeats its purpose. To test each beach towel's absorbency, I took quick laps in the water before drying myself off, noting how quickly it absorbed water at the first pass and whether or not I had to repeat the process.
Sand repellence: This is a bit of a contentious term, as Leaf said 'if a towel really is sand-repellent, it probably doesn't absorb water [as well], so you won't be able to dry off. Also, if a towel is advertised as sand-repellent, they're probably lying to your face.' For lack of a better word, however, I decided to stick with the term and use it to mean either a beach towel's ability to minimize the amount of sand it traps or how quickly you can shake it off (or both). To test this, I laid each towel on the sand, sat on it after a swim to get it wet, left it lying there for about 30 to 45 minutes and then checked how quickly it shook sand off while still damp.
Drying ability: As I mentioned, how quickly each beach towel dries isn't as important as the two aforementioned criteria. Leaf pointed out that 'you'll be leaving it in the sun all day anyway, so it'll dry.' It is still an important factor, however, to users who aren't planning to stay at the beach all day and don't want to deal with a wet towel stewing in the car. After the absorbency test, I set each towel on a lounge chair and set a stopwatch to determine how long it took to dry on a sunny, 78-degree day.
Design
Comfort and feel: How you want your towel to feel is more of a personal preference, but I included it in my tests anyway so that you know exactly what you're getting before you hit that buy button. During use, I noted how each towel feels, if it's plush or not, soft to the touch or a little rough, luxurious or cheap-feeling.
Material: The most common fabrics used for beach towels are regular cotton, Turkish cotton and polyester blend microfiber, and each has its strengths. There are also microterry towels similar to terry cloth in feel but made of polyester. Regular cotton towels tend to be thicker and plusher, Turkish cotton towels are generally the thinnest and most lightweight, and microfiber and microterry towels are supposed to be more sand-resistant and faster to dry. I made sure to note what each towel is made of, so you know what to expect. In addition, I also noted whether a beach towel is made of two different materials. Leaf advised to 'get a towel with a different pattern or texture on each side. One side is the side you touch, the other is the side the sand touches.'
Durability: Although a beach towel's durability can only be determined after long-term use, I tried to mimic that in my two weeks of testing by machine-washing and drying each towel, following its manufacturer's specific instructions, exactly five times. After each washing and drying cycle, I noted the difference (or lack thereof) in feel, thickness, quality, and performance.
Size and portability: I put these two factors in one criterion, but they imply two different things for users. Size implies space and coverage, while portability implies travel friendliness (how lightweight it is, how packable and how much space it takes up in your travel bag). I tested both by not just lying on each and using them to dry myself, but also packing and traveling with them.
Value
Price: It's worth spending a little more for quality and performance. However, at a certain point, you're probably paying too much. During my testing, I found that what you get from a premium towel, you can likely find on a much more affordable option. So I made sure to factor that in when choosing my top picks.
Absorbency, sand repellence and durability should be at the top of your list when choosing a beach towel. However, ultimately, the best beach towel for you is the one that meets your needs and preferences.
Just keep in mind that there are advantages and disadvantages to each type of beach towel. Neither Leaf nor Green is a fan of microfiber towels, for example, with the former saying that they 'do not work' and the latter saying that you've 'sacrificed too much if you are using a microfiber beach towel.'
They have a point — based on my personal experience, many microfiber towels are not as absorbent as advertised. They're generally not the softest either. However, there are exceptions.
With traditional cotton beach towels, they're generally thick, plush and super absorbent. But they also tend to catch a lot of sand, dry slower and be too bulky to be travel-friendly. You can roll something like the Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel or the Business & Pleasure Beach Towel as tightly as you can, but it's still going to take up too much space in your carry-on luggage.
Finally, Turkish towels are absorbent, fast-drying and travel-friendly. However, because they're typically thin and lightweight, they can only absorb so much water before they start to feel sopping wet and need to dry out. Plus, while there are exceptions to the rule — both the Huckberry Mediterranean Turkish Towel and the Olive & Linen Eversoft Turkish Towel are under $50 — they also tend to be expensive.
So, before you commit, ensure you know which features are nonnegotiable for you and where you can compromise. If a faster-drying towel is more conducive to your lifestyle, then choose something that takes less time to dry. If you need one for your travels or something compact enough to throw in your beach bag, then you should probably prioritize the portability and packability of a Turkish or a microfiber towel over getting that cozy and plush experience that a traditional cotton towel offers.
Brooklinen Beach Towel
Plush and luxurious, the Brooklinen Beach Towel boasts a terry side for a plush toweling experience and a velour side for sand repellence. The Brooklinen Beach Towel is the closest rival to the Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel. The perfect example of what Leaf was referring to as a towel with a different texture on each side, it boasts a plush terry side that's very gentle on the skin and soft to the touch, and a velour side that's especially good at repelling sand — better than the Mark & Graham and the Nomadix Original Towel, in fact. So you're getting the best of both worlds here.
It's also fairly quick to dry, taking about 55 minutes in my tests, and fairly packable, though it's still bulky and will take up space in your luggage.
However, the Brooklinen Beach Towel has some flaws that kept it from the top spot. It's a little more expensive than the Mark & Graham. That wouldn't have been a deal breaker except that it's also not as absorbent as the current winner, which is surprising considering the attention to detail Brooklinen seemed to have poured into its construction.
Coyuchi Mediterranean Organic Towels
Among the best Turkish beach towels on the market, the Coyuchi Mediterranean is very absorbent, fast-drying and sand-repellent. The Coyuchi Mediterranean Organic Towel gave the Mark & Graham Cabana Stripe Beach Towel a good run for its money. This Turkish-made beach towel is one of the best performers in my product pool with its impressive ability to absorb water and capability to dry quickly. And by quickly, I truly mean quickly. In the same weather conditions as the winners, it only took an impressive 38 minutes to dry.
Sand repellence is also another thing it does well. I didn't even have to shake this towel that hard after use; sand just fell right off as soon as I lifted it — and that was with it still damp. It's also bigger than the Huckberry, offering a bit more coverage.
Unfortunately for the Coyuchi Mediterranean Organic Towel, it's also not the softest of the bunch, even after five washes. It's not rough on the skin, but it's not the most luxurious-feeling either. That and its $98 price make it a less desirable beach towel than the Mark & Graham.
Frontgate Resort Collection Beach Towel
Another plush option, the Frontgate Resort Beach Towel is soft, absorbent and deceivingly portable. It's also as affordable as the Mark & Graham. The Frontgate Resort Collection Beach Towel is almost there. Made of 100% cotton, it lives up to its name with its soft and plush feel that may make you think, if only for an instant, that you're staying at a luxury beach resort. It's also very absorbent, one of the most absorbent beach towels I tested, and quite big at 40 by 70 inches. And while it's not as thin and lightweight as Turkish towels, it can be rolled into a more packable size, which makes it decently travel-friendly.
However, it also missed the mark on a few vital things, keeping it from earning a spot in my top three. It took about an hour and 30 minutes to completely dry and it trapped so much sand that even after vigorous shaking, I still ended up with quite a bit of it on my entryway floor.
The Frontgate Resort Collection Beach Towel is nice and cozy, but it's more appropriate for pool outings rather than trips to the beach.
Baina Roman Pool Towel
Soft, beautiful and ultra absorbent, the Baina towel is a luxe beach towel with a price to match. I just wish it had better sand resistance. I was really hoping the Baina Roman Pool Towel would come out on top. Soft, beautiful and luxurious, it feels like the towel that opulent resorts are made of. It's priced like one too, with its hefty $110 price tag, which I would happily pay if it were worth the money.
In some ways, it is. It's very soft and nice to the touch, and those lovely colors stayed vibrant even after five washings. It also proved extremely absorbent and had a drying time that matched my winner, the Mark & Graham, completely drying by the 50-minute mark. And, it's just about as thick too, bulky but not too much that you can't pack it in your carry-on.
Sadly, for the price, you're also only getting a 35-by-67-inch towel, which is small by beach towel standards. And you also have to work a little to get the sand off, especially if the towel is still damp.
Olive & Linen Eversoft Turkish Towel
Though highly absorbent, sand-repellent and portable, the Olive & Linen Eversoft Turkish Towel feels more like a light beach blanket than a towel. The Olive & Linen Eversoft Turkish Towel is great at two things: sand repellence and portability. This premium Turkish cotton beach towel is not just thin and lightweight; it's packable enough to be reduced to a size that will easily fit in a bigger purse or a small backpack. And its sand repellence is so good, sand just came right off during testing, even when it was still slightly damp.
Combine those with its 40-by-70-inch dimensions and unbelievably affordable $34 price tag, and you have the makings of a winner. Sadly, its lightweight nature also proved to be a double-edged sword. Although the beach towel is very absorbent, it also cannot take in as much water, which means you'll need to let all that excess water drip off you and your swimwear before you use it to dry yourself. What's even more bizarre is that despite being thin, it took about an hour to dry in the sun in 76-degree weather.
If you're looking for a different budget beach towel option, the Olive & Linen Eversoft Turkish Towel is a good one as long as you don't mind making these sacrifices. If you do, I recommend sticking with my best budget pick.
Business & Pleasure Beach Towel
Soft, thick and fluffy, the very absorbent Business & Pleasure Beach Towel looks and feels great. However, it's neither sand- nor travel-friendly. Business & Pleasure has always been one of my favorite beach lifestyle brands, so, much like the Baina Roman Pool Towel, I low-key thought the Business & Pleasure Beach Towel would top this list. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely premium towel — soft, thick and plush, vibrant even after five washes and very absorbent.
It also boasts two different textures, one for drying, the other for lounging. And it's not badly priced either. At $79, it sits in the mid-range and is more affordable than the Baina.
However, it also suffers from the same flaws as the Baina. It's too small for a beach towel at just 34 by 66 inches, and it not only traps a lot of sand, but also has a harder time shaking it off, especially if it's still damp. What's more, it took a little over an hour to dry under direct sunlight. I would buy this one, but only for the aesthetic or to use at the pool.
Frontgate Resort Collection Turkish Beach Towel
Great at repelling sand, this Turkish beach towel from Frontgate offers a lot of coverage. But there are far too many concessions here to be worthy of its price. I wish I could say that Frontgate's Turkish beach towel contender is just as good as the others in my testing pool. It's not a terrible towel. In fact, it has some great features. It comes with two different textures, much like the Business & Pleasure Beach Towel. It's large at 72 by 40 inches. And its sand repellence is pretty impressive, with the sand effortlessly falling right off as soon as I lifted and shook it once.
Sadly, that's where its pros end. It's not the softest towel I tested, which I wouldn't have minded except it's not as absorbent either. Or at least not as absorbent as advertised. Couple that with the fact that it took an hour and 15 minutes to dry completely during my tests, and you've got a beach towel that's better utilized as a beach blanket.
And that's without mentioning its $79 price tag and not-so-portable design — on the thicker side, it's less packable than the Coyuchi and the Huckberry beach towels. There are, therefore, better-value options than the Frontgate Resort Collection Turkish Beach Towel.
Still have questions about beach towels? I asked lifelong surfers and beach towel connoisseurs Colin Leaf and Lucy Green to share some insights.
Are Turkish beach towels better?
Are Turkish beach towels better?
Not necessarily. According to Green, 'They dry quicker and are generally lighter, but sometimes I love the coziness of a fuzzy towel.'
How often should you wash a beach towel?
How often should you wash a beach towel?
'If it gets dirty, I will wash it sooner,' Green said, but neither expert washes their beach towels after every use. 'I feel like if I can get mine dry at the beach and shake it free of sand, I will wash it about every five times I use it.'
What size should your beach towel be?
What size should your beach towel be?
Ideally, a beach towel should be big enough that you can lie flat on it and keep your legs and head off the sand. However, this is still a personal preference. The largest beach towel in my product pool was 40 inches wide and 72 inches long. However, some were as small as 30 by 60 inches.
Colin Leaf, a PhD candidate in the USC chemistry department and a lifelong surfer.
Lucy Green, a Los Angeles-based video editor who's been surfing since she was 12.
CNN Underscored editors thoroughly test all the products we cover and provide full transparency about how we test them. We have a skilled team of writers and editors with many years of testing experience who ensure each article is carefully edited and products are properly vetted. We talk to top experts when relevant to make certain we are testing each product accurately and speaking about the pros and cons of each item.
Testing writer Michelle Rae Uy boasts years of experience covering lifestyle products and writing product reviews. She recently tested and reviewed several beach gear and summer products, writing several of our guides, including the best beach wagons and the best beach umbrellas. While writing this guide, she was also testing beach chairs, sunscreens and a number of summer travel gear items.