Whenever I get asked for my recommendation for a yoga mat, I bubble over with excitement thinking of all the possibilities! It’s hard to know where to start because I have so many yoga mat loves. I thought I’d start on here with the one I use the most, my traveling yoga mat!
My go-to for travel is the Manduka eko superlite travel mat (there are even more color options on Amazon).
Qualities of an ideal travel yoga mat:
1: packability: weight, size, ease of traveling with. This one fits the bill as it folds easily and fits in just about any bag without taking up too much room.
2: functionality: I like a mat that I’m not going to slip all over. I want to lightly “stick” to it, or at least not have my hands and feet slide around. This one has the perfect amount of grip for my liking.
3: longevity: a yoga mat doesn’t need to last forever, but it should be able to take some wear and tear. I have had this on balconies, docks, crammed in an over-packed suitcase, on hotel room carpets and on extended yoga retreats. It will take a licking.
It bears mentioning that I actually have two, this is also the preferred travel yoga mat of yogi puggles. Snoop is partial to the one I have in the color Arise and his favorite yoga poses on the mat are child’s pose and savasana.
The cons:
- It is very thin, and if you aren’t used to that you might not like it. I’ve gotten used to it, and it is worth the trade-off for how portable and easy to travel with it is. But this is the main reason it is not my every-day home yoga mat.
- Because it’s made of rubber there is an initial smell factor right when you get open it, but I assure you in goes away.
And if you use it for namaste & rosé (restorative with a glass of rosé at the top of the mat), you won’t even care about the cons.
Do you travel with a yoga mat? What exotic places and faraway lands has it been to?
