California Beach Towels

In California, the Beach Towel is King! You can use towels to sunbathe on beaches, to wrap around your body while you change your clothes, to wear as shawls, as blankets, as robes, wraps and even use them as pillows! Though California didn't invent the towel, there are plenty of places to buy unique and touristy towels with the added bonus of utility and function when you take them home.

It really isn't for certain where the towel was first invented. Bursa, Turkey is listed in historical notes and is credited for its early production of Turkish towels. But it also was known as a world center for silk and textile production. The towel has long been a traveling companion and is seen throughout the centuries as one of several items that individuals would have with them, as discovered in archaeological digs.

You can buy a bath towel for as cheap as $2.99 on sale, or spend up to $35 on a decorative, oversized beach towel. Why travel with a towel? We have used them for a variety of purposes, especially when staying at hotels and vacation rentals. Many hotels aren't generous with their towels supplied to rooms, and some offer tiny little towels hardly functional for getting dry. Several hotels in New York and Hawaii began a pilot program to monitor their towels by adding RFID tracking devices to them in 2011. Computer chips with IDs or bar codes the size of a grain of rice are sewn or stamped into the towel fabric, and when you try to leave with a towel, the hotel has your number! One hotel in Hawaii claims to have reduced its towel theft from 4,000 in a month to 750, for a savings of over $15,000 per month. Ways to beat the chip are to cut it out or smash it with a hammer, but who would want a towel that much when you can buy one for 3 bucks?