Travel Gear Review: Is There Really a Sand-Free Beach Towel?

I have been using my Tesalate sand-free beach towel while traveling in the Caribbean. Here, I unfurl it for a day at Great Bay Beach in St. Maarten.

The soft sands of the beach are wonderful.

Walking along barefoot and swirling it around between your toes.

Spreading out a towel and laying down, as you slip off into a peaceful sleep as you listen to the sounds of the crashing surf of the sea.

Yes, the sand is like a close friend you meet at the beach a few times a year.

But that delightful friend turns into quite the clingy pest, insisting on coming back home with you, whether invited or not.

A great day at the beach can often turn a little frustrating as you battle the sand you track back into your car, clothes and home.

Tesalate has developed a line of beach towels to help minimize that hassle. The company sent me one of their sand-free beach towels and asked that I give it a try and honest review. I go to beaches all the time, so I thought this type of towel could prove to be a perfect addition to my travel gear.

That is, if it really works.

I spent most of this fall on trips to the Caribbean, exploring Belize and Guatemala in Central America, and islands in the Bahamas, as well as San Juan and St. Maarten.

I took along my Tesalate towel to give it a vigorous test in all sorts of sandy environments.

First off: It packs easily and comes in a handy carrying tote that easily stuffs into my bags (ideal for my carry-on only travel style).

One of the best features of the towel: It's so compact.

I let Colleen pick the design, and she liked the Mahalo. These beach towels are designed in Australia and shipped all over the world. The company offers free shipping and returns for U.S. customers.

The towels measure 63 inches by 31 inches and cost $59. They have dozens of cool designs to choose from, and you'll even find a selection of "towels for two" (63 inches by 63 inches, $99) at Tesalate.com.

My beach towel is an OK fit for me. I'm 6-foot-4, so I would need a much longer towel to fit my whole body onto while stretched out, but my Tesalate towel worked just fine for plopping down on the beach comfortably. All of the photos in this post are from our day at Great Bay Beach in St. Maarten, our favorite place to hang out when we arrive by cruise ship to this amazing island. To see how you can get to Great Bay Beach, check out our video below.

The material is not quite as fluffy as some of the premium beach towels you can find, but you can't have it be super soft and sand-free at the same time, I suppose.

The Tesalate sand-free beach towel scores high on its portability and effectiveness in keeping the sand where it belongs — at the beach.

The company developed the towel using its exclusive AbsorbLite fabric. The towel is fairly thin, so I thought that while it might resist sand, it certainly would sacrifice the ability to use it to effectively dry off after a plunge in the Caribbean Sea.

However, I was pleased by the absorbency as I toweled off on Great Bay Beach in St. Maarten. Tesalate says its towels can hold more than a liter of water. They also are very quick drying and really compact when rolled up.

Also, when I pack for a trip and decide what I really want to place into my valuable luggage space, it helps if an item can serve multiple purposes.

The Tesalate sand-free towel also is great as a yoga mat, and I was glad I had it to spread out on a dewy deck for my early morning routines while sailing over the past month. It also makes an effective towel to use after a workout or a general shammy-type towel to help keep surfaces dry. You can also pin up the towel to create an effective sun shade.

The towel also has a small attached loop for hanging.

A few vigorous shakes, and the towel was as clean and sand-free as when I unpacked it to start my day at the beach.

But is it really sand-free? Well, that is the bold claim of this towel, after all. In a word: Yes.

I ran the towel through a number of tests, from regular use to overloading the towel with sand, to see whether it could live up to the hype.

A few simple shakes of the towel, and the sand snaps off the surface. There were maybe a few stray grains to knock off after the shake, but the towel emerged from each day at the beach essentially sand-free and ready to tuck away in my bag until I needed it again.
I'm glad to add it to my travel kit, and because I had such a good experience with it, I wanted to share it with you, too, in case you thought it could help you in your adventures.

Thanks for reading,
JR