How to Choose a Sun Hat to Take on Holiday

Why You Packed a Hat and Never Wore It (And What To Do Differently Next Trip)

A reader recently wrote to me with a confession I suspect a lot of you share.

She’d packed a hat for her trip, a good one, chosen specifically for sun protection. It came home unworn. Why? Because nobody else on the street was wearing one, and she didn’t want to stand out any more than she already did as a tourist. Fair enough. Nobody wants to feel like they’re wearing a costume.

But she also doesn’t want skin cancer. Also fair enough. And as someone who has had two small skin cancers removed from her face, I don’t want it either!

So let’s sort this out properly: how to choose a hat that actually looks like you rather than a prop, how to pick one versatile enough to earn its space in your suitcase, and how to pack it without arriving with something that looks like it’s been sat on. (Because it probably has.)

The Real Reason You Left It in the Suitcase

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about hats: it’s rarely about the hat. It’s about permission.

When everyone around you is bare-headed, putting on a hat feels like putting your hand up in class. You become visible in a way you didn’t sign up for. That’s not vanity; it’s a completely normal response to feeling like an outsider in a new place.

The desire to fit-in – to blend-in is often a strong desire. Particularly when travelling, looking like a tourist can make you a target for pickpockets which was one of your concerns. Remember when you’re travelling, you’re not going to work, the majority of people who are on the streets live where you are and are probably going about their daily life, going to work, or the like, so they will be inside most of the day. But you, if you’re like me and do a lot of walking the streets in the sun when travelling, then you really do need to wear your hat.

The fix isn’t a better hat. It’s a different question. Instead of “will I stand out?”, ask “what happens to my skin if I don’t?” Because the answer to that second question is the one that actually matters.

What a Hat Is Actually Doing For You

Skin cancer isn’t subtle about where it likes to show up. Most of it appears on the parts of us that get the most sun, which is largely the face, ears and neck, and a hat is one of the simplest tools available for protecting exactly those areas.

The catch is that not all hats do this equally well. Research modelling UV exposure across different hat styles has found that wide-brimmed hats consistently outperform caps and visors, largely because caps and visors leave the ears and neck completely exposed while only shading part of the face, with broad-brimmed hats, bucket hats and legionnaire-style hats singled out as the most effective options and baseball caps flagged specifically for failing to protect the neck and ears. Dermatologists tend to agree on the numbers: a genuinely protective brim should extend at least two to three inches from your head, and sun visors don’t do much good at all.

So the boring but useful takeaway: brim width is doing most of the work. A hat with beautiful fabric and a stingy brim is mostly decoration.

Choosing a Sun Hat That Doesn’t Feel Like a Costume

The trick to a sun hat that reads as chic rather than “tourist in a movie” is structure. A stiff, sculptural brim looks intentional. A soft, floppy one can tip into fancy-dress territory if you’re not careful, especially paired with a busy outfit.

Think of it the way you’d think of a good blazer: the more considered the shape, the harder it works for you. A hat with a slightly structured brim and a clean crown does the same job as tailoring; it gives the rest of your outfit permission to be simple.

A few things worth prioritising when you’re trying one on:

A brim of at least three inches, ideally covering the back of your neck as well as your face
A flatter crown if you have a longer face, and a higher crown if your face is shorter or rounder, since it balances your proportions rather than exaggerating them
Natural, neutral tones over anything with a loud print or heavy branding, for reasons I’ll get to in a moment

The Versatile Hat: One That Works With Almost Everything

If you’re only packing one hat, the colour matters more than you’d think. A natural straw, raffia or a soft neutral like cream, mushroom or sand will coordinate with nearly your entire holiday wardrobe, the same way a good pair of neutral sandals does. Black or brown works too, particularly if your travel wardrobe already leans that way. My all-purpose hat colour is white; it relates to my hair colour (always a favourite for me – repeat your hair colour in your hat) and all my outfits.

Here’s an example from my recent overseas trip (with Mr Inside Out Style) – this hat is made from thickish fabric in a raffia style – it’s fabric but because of the construction – it has enough body that I can adjust the brim and it doesn ‘t collapse on my face.

This is the “goes with everything” test, and it’s worth applying ruthlessly. If you can’t picture a hat working with at least three different outfits in your suitcase, it’s not earning its space, no matter how much you loved it in the shop.

Packing It Without Ruining It

This is usually where the plan falls apart. Nobody wants to pack a hat that arrives looking like it lost a fight with a suitcase.

A few practical options:

Look for a genuinely crushable straw or a fabric hat. Some are woven specifically to spring back into shape, which makes them far more forgiving travel companions than a stiff-brimmed structured hat.
Pack it in the centre of your case, stuffed with soft items like scarves or underwear to help it hold its shape, rather than squashed under shoes.
Wear it on travel days. It’s the one time a hat genuinely does have somewhere to be, and it frees up suitcase space for the rest of your trip.
Consider buying locally once you arrive, especially somewhere hot. A hat picked up at your destination is often better suited to the climate, and it sidesteps the packing problem altogether.

Why You Don’t See Me in Hats on the Blog

This lovely reader also asked why you don’t see me in hats often on the blog. This one made me smile, because the answer is far less interesting than you’d think. My outfit photos are taken early in the morning before work, in the brief window before I head back inside and sit down at my desk. I’m not exactly baking in midday sun at that point, so a hat doesn’t make it into the shot.

But away from the camera, I wear hats frequently, just not decoratively. In summer, when I’m actually outside in the sun, whether gardening, walking the dogs or just sitting outside, I reach for a genuinely huge sun hat, the kind that does real work rather than a token nod to the idea of one. In the depths of winter, it’s beanies for dog walks in my activewear, purely for warmth. And on a cold day out, when I’ll be outside, a fedora earns its place. When I travel, I have a white fabric sun hat that folds down to nothing, and I don’t have to worry about getting crushed.

I wear the hat that matches what I’m actually doing, not what I think I should be seen in. Which, funnily enough, is exactly the advice I’d give you.

Your Next Step

Before your next trip, buy one hat: neutral, fabric, three-inch brim, something that packs down and springs back. Then wear it. Standing out for two weeks of travel is a far smaller cost than the one you’d pay for skipping it entirely.

Have you found a hat that survived a suitcase and still looked good on the other side? I’d love to hear what worked for you.