My Travel Yoga Mat Is a Magic Carpet I Ride to Me-Time

For the past few years, I’ve sought a yoga mat I could easily travel with—something lightweight and foldable that would allow me to unroll anywhere: the back patio of an AirbnB, a hotel room, the basement of my brother-in-law’s house during Thanksgiving week. Unrolling a yoga mat is like having a portable gym with me wherever I go. A dedicated space for workouts and yoga makes me feel like I’m riding a magic carpet to fitness and me-time, wherever I am in the world and whoever I’m with.

I’m a once-a-week yogi who dials up a class on an app when my body feels creaky from outdoor adventuring. I’ve been doing yoga off-and-on for the greater part of 25 years, having started with a small group class at a community center on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. I began striking occasional Mountain poses while walking my dog on mountain trails and have learned to move into a Dancer’s pose when my quads and hip flexors are tight. I sometimes crave cocooning into Child’s Pose and unwinding my whole body with simple twists. But, despite the lack of rigor in my yoga practice, I value the time and don’t want to miss it because I’m on the road. And it’s not just yoga I practice on my rectangular personal space. I do bodyweight workouts of air squats and lunges, single-leg deadlifts, and plank variations as well.

When I first started testing the Oko Living Jade & Jute Travel Yoga Mat last fall, I liked it immediately because, upon unrolling, it smells like a fresh breeze over a meadow. That’s because it’s mostly cotton (92 percent), not petroleum-derived rubber, and dyed with medicinal Aryuvedic plants and herbs like turmeric and holy basil (for real), which supposedly soothe the skin and reduce stress. It’s more of a yoga rug than a mat because it’s hand-loomed (“ethically hand-loomed,” says the company), and the cotton is Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS)-certified.

Oko Living Jade & Jute Travel Yoga Mat

$174 at Oko Living  $174 at Made Trade

I soon discovered how easily it travels. While rubber yoga mats hold creases if folded in half, and are often too long when rolled up to shove into a carry-on bag, this “rug” folds up easily into almost any shape, and can lay close-to-flat with my clothes in a travel bag. It also weighs just 2.5 pounds.

But, what you gain in portability you pay for in thickness. At 3mm thick (some yoga mats are 5mm, 6mm, or even 7mm thick), practicing yoga on a firm surface means moving with intention (my God, I speak yogi!) in certain poses and positions, like bending a knee in a quad stretch, or curling on my back. It’s also pricey. The 3mm version of the Travel Mat I have costs $174. But, compare that to multiple drop-in fees at gyms while traveling, and the time spent to get to said gyms and back. In my line of work, time is money.

Plenty of yogis tend to diss this mat, and I can see why. It lacks a grippy rubber top surface to keep feet from slipping away from hands in Downward-Facing Dog, for instance, which could very well result in a faceplant. Instead, the soft rug/mat is, honestly, a little slippery. The 8 percent of the loomed rug that is not cotton is all-natural jute, which helps with some grip. Raised ridges at both ends provide extra texture to root down feet and hands in certain poses and the cotton becomes grippier when sweat upon, but still, it’s much slicker than a traditional rubber yoga mat.

But that’s part of why I love it. I’m someone who likes a physical challenge. I’m also someone who takes advantage of every single strengthening benefit I can get, whether that’s from carrying a loaded backpack when I run with my dog, or practicing yoga on a mat that requires total focus and muscle engagement or else…faceplant.

I’m a trail runner. I place a high value on grip and traction. But immediately upon dialing up a CorePower class on my phone at home on this mat, I liked having to work a little harder to not slip. It’s not that I don’t think yoga on a regular, stickier mat isn’t hard. But on this rug-like mat, although poses can feel a tad precarious at first, I’ve felt the engagement of everything from my core muscles to my connective tissue, and I dig it. (I’ve since seen Instagram ads affirming my observation that using Oko Living “mats” enhances a person’s yoga practice and makes them stronger.) The rug is not as slick as a Slip-n-Slide. It’s just not nearly as sticky as a rubber mat—but it doesn’t smell or feel like rubber, either.

Besides feeling stronger and more in control of my body in poses every time I use this rug, I also love how my bare feet feel against it when I’m in poses or doing squats, and how my hands feel connected to its soft, organic cotton texture. And I appreciate how the natural tree rubber coating on its bottom side grips to hard surfaces to keep the mat from slipping on the floor; and grips just enough to not move on carpet.

I have washed the rug—it’s said to be washable with the included bag of wildcrafted soap nuts (I’m not making this up) that serve as laundry detergent. It emerged from the wash and air dry clean, albeit with some cotton fuzzies still requiring occasional removal weeks later. I pull them off like I pull tufts off my shedding dog.

Earlier this summer, I unpacked the 74-inch-long by 27-inch-wide mat from my bag three times while in Costa Rica. Once to do an hour-long class, using my phone and headphones, in a dedicated open-air yoga space that wasn’t in use. Once to do a 45-minute class on a hotel balcony overlooking a rainforest. The third time to do bodyweight exercises on a wooden platform next to a river. My magic carpet served me well—freeing me to spontaneously indulge in a workout whenever and wherever I wanted—as it has in a hotel room in Santa Fe where I banged out a 40-minute core strengthening session during a busy work trip, and in my in-laws’s carpeted basement basement where I did yoga facing a sliding glass door that lead to dense Maryland woods.

This magic (yoga) carpet will continue to transport me to a place where I’m a fitter, Zen-like being, whether I’m traveling or using it in my own house.