9 ways with a sarong

Olivia Haughton’s must-have travel essential is a sarong – here are her top nine uses for the slinky slip of material

Team Wanderlust

19 June 2012

Fans of the Douglas Adams trilogy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will know the value a towel to a traveller, particularly one planning on interstellar hitchhiking. This is because a towel has many practical uses: “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 mini raft 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 to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very ravenous); 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.”

I must have been an interstellar hitchhiker in another life because my travel essential is all about practicality and multiple uses. Last week, we revealed some of the Wanderlust team’s one must-have travel item, desert island essential, if you will.

When I set off on my first solo adventure six years ago a sarong couldn’t have been further from my consciousness. While I appreciate it’s an integral item of clothing to many cultures around the world, for me it had only ever been an impractical skirt that falls down a lot. I was focussed on minimal packing and anything as frivolous as a skirt was a definite no. I can’t remember exactly what swayed me – quite possibly the heat and a month spent in my one pair of shorts – but when stuck in the pretty soulless town of Airlie Beach on Australia’s east coast, I found myself buying a sarong.

At first it was great for padding around hostels in, but I soon discovered how underrated the sarong is, and not because I learned to tie it round my waist so it stayed up for longer than five minutes (I didn’t), but because it came in handy in so many ways…

1. For a bit of privacy or shade from a late-night lamp in a dorm room the sarong is ideal to drape around the bottom bunk.

2. In the stifling heat of Australia’s summer (or many exotic places), sleeping in a sleeping bag is often too much, but the light covering of a sarong’s material can give the perfect balance of feeling covered without the extra warmth.

3. During the day it is perfect for spreading out on a beach, park or boat deck to sit on, a job a tiny travel towel is not worthy of.

4. When the scorching sun becomes too much it can be wrapped around your head for protection or draped over shoulders to prevent pale skin from burning.

5. For those times when you ‘have’ to change out of wet swimming gear on a beach, the swathes of cloth can cover you up as you hop around underneath, trying (and failing) to retain some sense of composure. For those that have tried this, you’ll know that with your pants round your ankles, you’re fighting a loosing battle. Chin up, you’ve just provided passers by with some amusement so it’s not all bad.

6. When camping a sarong doubles up as a pillow. The same applies for flying, which leads me to cooler climes…

7. As summer fades and nights are a little cooler, the added covering over a sleeping bag can be welcome; even the thin material traps air, adding another layer of insulation.

8. Reaching higher altitudes and unexpected chills it turns out the sarong can be used as a great scarf too.

9. And finally, it can also be used as a towel. It’s not the most absorbent of towels, but it’s definitely better than nothing (especially if your űber minimalist quick-drying travel towel does nothing for your modesty).

So all in all, I think I’ve done one up on Douglas. Mind you, I’m not sure how much use a sarong would be in hand-to-hand combat.