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Buying Towels for Your Vacation Rental Property
Tips for buying affordable and long-lasting towels for your vacation home.
During a recent HomeAway.com focus group where we brought in travelers to talk about their travel experiences, one amenity that came up over and over was towels. The travelers loved staying in vacation rentals (cabins, condos, cottages, etc.), but have had some bad experiences with towels at the vacation properties they have stayed in. According to the travelers, towels make a big difference in the quality of their stay.
So just how do you choose the right towels for your second home? Follow these simple guidelines:
 Buy light colored towels. You don't have to necessarily buy white towels (though they are fine), but do steer clear of dark colors like forest green, cranberry, or chocolate. These colors tend to bleed (or fade) and can be a lint nightmare.
Buy large bath towels, not bath sheets. Even though your guests may love bath sheets, they take up tons of space in the washing machine and take forever to dry. So if you don't want your housekeeper to fire you, opt for larger bath towels (30x54) instead.
Buy white washcloths in bulk at a discount store like Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, or Costco. Just accept the fact that your guests are probably going to use washcloths to remove makeup and that your housekeeper is going to have to throw a few out after every guest.
Make sure to have at least 2 bath towels, 2 hand towels, and 4 washcloths per guest. If your property sleeps a maximum of 8 people, you need to have at least 16 bath towels, 16 hand towels, and 32 washcloths.
Don't buy towels based on their softness in the store. Low quality towels lose most of their softness after the second or third wash. Even if those $2 bath towels are soft in the store, they won't be when your guests get around to using them.
Don't buy the cheapest or the most expensive towels. Unless you own a “luxury” property, there's no need to pay more than $10 per towel. If you watch for sales at the major department stores and online (SmartBargains.com, etc.), you can probably find good quality towels for $4 to $7 each.
Expect to replace towels often. Even if you buy top-dollar towels, you're going to have to replace them more often than your towels at home.
The bottom line: To guarantee the best possible stay for your vacation home guests, choose quality, long-lasting towels.
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What kind of towels have worked or not worked at your vacation rental?
"Sam's Club has very good towels at reasonable rates. They stay very good for at least a year, then should be rotated. Several guests have actually asked where I bought them. I give the used towels and pillows, (which I change at least twice a year) to a local mission." -Marvin, Dillon, CO (VRBO #211)
"I made the mistake of getting low-end towels from Hobby Lobby. Some were dark blue and some were beige. My guests washed them in the same load and now my towels are faded blue and dingy beige." -Robyn T., Phoenix, AZ
"Regarding washcloths and makeup: I picked up an idea from a small hotel in Corpus Christi. They posted a small notice on the mirror to those using cloths for makeup removal, to use the supplied dark green washcloths.I discussed it with the owner/proprietor and he said it works great. Even when washed and the mascara stains the cloth, it's very small and mostly undetectable! I'm trying black cloths (and have washed them to the point of not bleeding). I wash them with the 'stained/discolored' towels I have designated for spills." -Markus, Lake Travis, TX (HomeAway)
"I buy towels in a palette of different colors each. That way my guests know which towel they used by color and hopefully this cuts down on the number of laundry loads washed as it is easier to reuse the same color towel again. It is also much easier to replace a worn towel as it is not part of a set of exact towels. The variety of colors can also be very chic and interesting." -Vicki, Cape Cod, MA
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