I never realized this was such a problem for some folks. I’ll share more of my personal experiences after/if this gets some responses.
Hoping against hope we’ll see a poll here momentarily…
Anyone remember the doozy of a thread about what one woman’s friend liked to do with the guest towels? :eek:
If you like them, let them use the nice fluffy towels.
If you don’t like them, throw the one you just did the butt-floss thing with in the dryer and put that one out for them.
Hey, it’s my first time - cut me some slack, dude! 
Johnny L.A., I just realized that you’re in the Pacific Northwest, right? We should totally get together and…oh, wait, forget it.
So far I see we’re a reasonable group, in that the first answer is the correct one.
However, we have guests this weekend. I put brand new, freshly washed towels in our newly redecorated bathroom for them. I walked by and noticed both towels and washcloths are still hanging as I left them. Meanwhile, an older towel from the linen closet is draped over the shower curtain rod. 
And about 30 years ago, a friend and I visited my aunt and uncle for a weekend. My friend took his own towels. My aunt was confused. I don’t think she was insulted, just perplexed, as was I when I found out.
Another weird option that I didn’t include - when my inlaws come to stay with us, they share a towel. I have plenty. I put out plenty. They still insist on sharing one towel. Yet if we did that at their house, they’d be insulted.
Some people are just weird…
I didn’t vote.
I generally take my own towel when I travel; not whenever I travel. But that’s only to friends’ places, and some of them are deficient in the towel department. But the last time I stayed at friends’ place I forgot my towel and used the one they put out for me. If I stay at a hotel/motel/B&B I use their towels.
I admit to something of a quandary. If you are talking about being an overnight guest and towels provided for after taking a shower, I think I usually find myself asking “Are these the towels to use?” or “Which towels should I use?” If it’s plainly obvious, like the guest bathroom looks like a hotel bathroom with obvious towels, I’ll use them. I would prefer these to be utilitarian rather than beribboned towel-like confections.
Sometimes if I’m just washing my hands and they’ve got elegant towels set up like a display at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, Waaay Beyond, I may just air dry my hands, wipe them on my pants, whatever. If there are obvious, normal looking towels, I’ll use them. I admit to preferring, and providing myself when I entertain, paper towels for guests who wash their hands. It may be a little less eco-friendly, but I’m not buying and maintaining cutesy little guest towels.
**Harriet **- I don’t do foofy towels, either bath size or hand towels. Fancy towels are too hard to use, too. Nice terry cloth is all you need to get the water off your hands.
The ones I put out are new only because the bathroom is new and the old ones are kinda raggedy and not color coordinated. Had their visit been for more than a few days, they’d have gotten the older ones in rotation because I only bought 4 new ones.
When I first got my house and had my first house guest, I made a big deal of needing to get a cabinet for towels to put in the bathroom, so that if the guest found himself standing naked in the bathroom without a towel (oh shit! forgot the towel!) he’d be able to find one. There was only enough room for a few towels, so that cabinet became strictly for guest towels.
The next few times this guy stayed over, we did the guest towel cabinet thing. Eventually I started using the towels myself, and then got tired of rolling them up to fit properly in the cabinet after I washed them. So there’s not so many towels in the “guest cabinet” now.
Anyway, it’s been 4 years and this guy has stayed here only a handful of times. The last TWO times he stayed here, I put towels - nice ones - in his room, on his bed for him to use. He was here for 3 days each time and never used the towels once. He still went to the guest cabinet to use the towels.
Not sure why. Also not sure why I didn’t tell him to use the towels in his room. I honestly thought he’d be all “oh good, towels for me.” They’re not even hanging up - he had to move them off the bed to sleep! And when he left, he made the bed - and put the un-used towels on top.
Oh well, guess I will go back to shoving them into the cabinet for him. I can’t un-train him now.
I’m amazed to be the only one so far who has answered to the fourth poll option (though my answer is really the same as Johnny L.A.'s post. It seems to me that it saves your host a small amount of laundry by using towels that you have brought. This is particularly the case if you are one of a large number of guests.
I never expect to have towels provided, even in a guest house (although that’s probably because I generally go for the cheapest, nastiest guest house available, and even when there are towels it is best to use one’s own if possible!).
Wha? Of course I use the towels that are given to me, just like I sleep in the bed that’s given to me.
I’m flabbergasted that anyone would think that rooting around in someone else’s linen closet is more polite than using the towels that my host would like me to use.
Yes. Unfortunately!
My sister did somthing nice last Christmas when my husband and I stayed with her - she put out guest bathrobes. Nice white thick terry ones! I thought that was very considerate of her.
Overnight guesting - I travel with a terry cloth robe and hair turban thingy, I hate towel drying with small bath sized towels … I prefer to wrap in my robe and let it blot me dry all at once. I also have terry cloth scuffs for my feet.
Hand towels I use what is provided.
I use the towels my host provides. I always have a nice stack of fresh towels in the guest bathroom when I have company. They’re plain white terrycloth towels, washcloths and hand towels. That should be obvious to anyone they’re meant to be used.
My brother-in-law asked me if he was supposed to use those towels the first time sis and he stayed at da cave. I told him, “No, don’t use the towels. I want you to walk through my living room buck naked and dripping and go stand out on the back porch until you’re dry.” Sis offered him twenty bucks to do it. Luckily he did understand he should use the towels instead.
I can’t imagine not using the towels provided by the house. Sure, they are sometimes fancy, but if your hosts are fancy folk, I’m guessing they’ll think wiping your hands on your pants is more gauche than dampening their tiny towel with a quilted seahorse on it.
We once walked upon Grandma cutting the Big Fluffy Hierba Towel in half (the one that had been one of my birthday presents, big enough to use it as a robe). She still doesn’t understand why she is not allowed to cut up other people’s towels when “they are too big” for her cat-like washing style.
Of course, when we go to her house, we bring our own towels, as hers aren’t big enough to use as a head towel, much less a body towel; we make sure to keep them hidden from her else she cut them up (they’re in her house, therefore she reckons they’re hers even if she has never seen them before).
When I deal with people I don’t already know to be irrational, I use the towels provided.
If I am provided obvious towels to use (such as being told, “These towels I left on the guest bed are for you.”) I will use them. I don’t like using fancy decorated hand towels if they are the sort that is obviously meant not to be used. In fact, I don’t grasp the concept of such towels. Nice towels that are meant to be used, yes, but not nice impossible-to-use-as-towels towels.