Shimmying yourself back into a still-damp bathing suit is a real vibe killer. As is using a sopping towel to dry off from a dip in the lake/river/ocean/pool/splash pad.
When I’m on vacation, the last thing I want to think about is laundry management, but with back-to-back swim days, getting your gear dry is essential to being ready for the next go-round of summertime fun.
Hanging stuff on a fence or a deck railing doesn’t get the job done, and accordion-style drying racks can be flimsy. Unless you’re willing to live with clothes and towels dangling from every doorknob in your home, you may resign yourself, as I have, to a life of summer dampness.
When I saw videos crowing about what an amazing, space-saving wonder these tripod-style drying racks are, gaining hundreds of thousands of likes, I needed to know more. One influencer calls it a “portable, foldable space saver,” words that can also be used to describe the more prevalent accordion-style drying racks.
To me, it looked cumbersome—a heavy plastic tube on spindly wooden legs destined to tip over. I ordered two versions of it online and tested them both.
In the end, they weren’t the easy-to-use miracle cure I’d been promised.
