More than forty years ago I was out with my aunt and uncle at a campground that turned out to have free showers. So I had a great shower.
Since I hadn’t known about the showers in advance I dried off with a small hand towel and it worked really well.
When I started backpacking again, microfiber towels were the rage. But they were circa $30 which seemed a bit much, so I went with a Dollar General wash cloth
I found that for general use a wash cloth is about perfect. Small, light and microfiber dries out quickly.
It works well for a cat bath, to take excess moisture off or for when you find a free public shower or a mountain lake.
Microfiber fabric works better as a small towel than cotton does for a backpacker. It grabs water better and dries faster. The down side is that it doesn’t scrub as well.
But what is better, the small towels and washcloths sell for about a dollar each and are found at any hardware store or Costco. I am a huge fan of inexpensive and easy to find gear.
Best, they are often given away for free at hardware stores. That is what I’m using right now. A free one from a hardware store. Who doesn’t love free?
My advice is to get a dollar’s worth of microfiber from a dollar store and try out a microfiber washcloth at home. Around the house I prefer cotton, though microfiber has a growing following for normal household use. Microfiber is lighter, dries faster and works better on the trail.
You can try one out after showering to get a feel for how it works and how well they last. My wife’s did the Appalachian Trail and 1600 miles on the PCT and is going strong.
From the dollar store you can get it for a lot less than thirty dollars or so one will cost from an outfitter.
(Yes. I do have one of the pricy ones somewhere in my gear I’m not using. It was a gift from another backpacker who had decided to move on to a smaller and lighter version. No surprise, so have I).