For hiking, I just wear those large straw hats that me look like I’m a asian farmer. They are cheap, and when they break, it’s easy to replace, especially if you’re hiking and the wind carries it away.It environmentally friendly, since it’s made out of biodegradable straws. And you’re providing jobs and a market to some person who made it.
My sig other does the Asian thing and carries an umbrella. Personally, I think it looks way too FOB-ish to carry an umbrella when it’s sunny and not raining, but then again I’ve seen more and more people do this. Fun fact: you aren’t suppose to keep your umbrella open if a horse passes you on a trail. it spooks them out. Found this out on a trail around 92130 where it’s shared with horses.
The problem with an umbrella is it’s bulky and it’s not convenient if you are hiking because it ties up at least one hand…..Also, if you’re hiking in a slot canyons like I was in Utah (where we got lost, ran out of water, and was in the middle of a flash flood thunderstorm and almost ended up on the 6 oclock missing people’s news..), umbrellas are really cumbersome in tight spaces and don’t work well if you need two hands to climb out of the slot canyons quickly. Also umbrella break way too easily. You know they make these $3 dollar store umbrellas and they make these really expensive large umbrellas that are $20-40… Guess what? They all last about the same time. I’ve never gotten good mileage out of any umbrella, cheap or more expensive. Things snag, and break and jam.. So just get a cheap umbrella from the dollar store… There was this super-duper deluxe one that I got from Home Depot with a gift card that was like $35… It broke after 2 uses. My $3 dollar store special lasted for like 6 months.
For my sig other, I offered to get one of these umbrella hats, but sig other said hell no…
I don’t understand why..this clearly effective thing that is more functional than form.. But oh well, not my call.
Besides hiking and beach, the trouble I have is in the car with the convertible with a top down. If you have the top down longer than 1/2 hour, it can get pretty toasty if you don’t wear a hat.I haven’t found a good solution beyond a baseball cap.. If I’m doing 93+mph, a baseball cap is the only thing that really will stay on your head. Anything larger than that will just fly off from the draft. That happened to me. My huge beat up straw hat flew right off my head, and ended up on on the windshield of this big ass truck with a trumpie bumper sticker and really pissed him off that it obstructed his visibility for a split second. Oops, my bad….I swear, I didn’t mean for that to happen…. I don’t see what he was pissed about. If I was driving my x5, it could have been my truck nuts that flew off my trailer hitch and that would have been a lot worse and caused real damage…… Anyway, you could tighten the drawstring really tight, but then the drag on the hat would pull your chin and make it really uncomfortable. Fortunately, I haven’t really gotten sun burned while driving, since my drives are usually less than 1 hours each time. And on a sunny day, I won’t lie though. With the top down, I leave the AC on full blasting in my face. It just works better that way… The same way that if the top is down during a cold day, the heater is on max too. MPG is negligibly effected…
If you’re really concerned about getting burned and drive a lot, you should consider tinting your car, even the front windows and windshield. If you do a lot of driving, you are getting a bit of sun through the driver and passenger window particularly if you are one of the people that like to rest your arm on the door sill.
Technically, it’s illegal to put any darkening tint on the windshield and driver and passenger side front door. SDPD doesn’t really care (unless you are a menace) since so many of their cops off duty drive cars tinted. CHP, on the other hand, hate tints, and if you get pulled over by the CHP, roll down your windows immediately. You could also just get a clear tint, that blocks the UV, like I do. I hate tinted driver, passenger windows.
Also, despite what any tint installer says, the tint film will eventually go bad and start to peel. 10-15-20 years later. You’ll need to get them replaced. The rear window could be tricky to remove because the rear glass usually has the rear defroster lines on the glass and once you put a tint on top of that, it’s kinda tricky to pull the tint off without destroying the defroster lines on the glass. For most americans, this isn’t an issue because they don’t keep their cars that long, and they often spend upgrades on their cars they don’t even own (lease)… But hey, that’s ok too. Whatever floats people’s boat.
Also, have you considered just wearing a mask? I mean, with the pandemic, people won’t even think you are weird and a good face mask does cover a good portion of the skin on your face.
I think I went full circle on this one…from straw hats, to umbrellas, to umbrella hats, to baseball caps, to convertibles tops, to truck nuts on an suv, to window tints, cops, and finally wearing a mask during a pandemic.
