The Towel

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Towels played an iconic role in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGG). They are described as the most "massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have." The fictitious time/space traveller and Guide Researcher Ford Prefect uses the idiom "a frood who really knows where his towel is" to mean someone generally alert and aware.

In the HHGG universe, a hitchhiker who carries a towel can always find a ride, because if someone is carrying a towel, it is assumed (however illogically) that they also have a toothbrush, a bathroom kit, shower shoes, hair nets, maps, a toolbox, tickets to the opera, finely lapped silicone wafers, a set of encyclopedias, an astonishing array of credit cards, travellers checks, etc. For this reason, hitchhikers were directed by the Guide to always carry a towel to maintain the appearance that they would make a good guest.

In addition, a towel can be used as a hammock, a blanket, or a cape. The corners of the towel can be soaked in vitamins, and useful bits of wire can be woven into the towel. The corners of a towel can also be tied together to make a bag. If wet, the towel can even be used in mêlée combat. You can use it to hide from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous).