The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy has much to say on the subject of towels.
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
Clearly anyone who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where their towel is, is clearly a person to be reckoned with.
The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.
My towel was given to me when the galaxy was still young, small furry animals from Alpha Centuri were real small furry animals from Alpha Centuri and the Hitch-Hikers trilogy was as yet a radio show in two series. It did not however come from the Salisbury branch of Marks and Spencer.
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Swimming Wild Outdoors 