How to choose the best hiking hat for your needs?
A hat might seem like a simple piece of hiking gear, but it turns out there’s actually a lot that goes into making a great summer hiking hat.
In fact, the best sun hats for hiking are chock full of different features and technologies to help you stay cool and protected in the midsummer heat.
For most of us, it can be quite difficult to choose the best sun hat for hiking when presented with so many different options.
To make it easier for you to find the best hiking hat for hot weather for your needs, we’ve created this list of the most important features to look for in a hat for hiking in the sun.
Sun Protection
When you’re out in the summer, the sun is blazing with full force. Research shows us that long-term and repeated exposure to the sun can cause a whole host of serious health issues, including skin cancer.
While this doesn’t mean that we should all hide inside our homes for the rest of our lives, it does mean that we should take some precautions when going outside.
Especially for those of us who enjoy mountain and desert adventures, we need to be cognizant of the dangers of exposing ourselves to excessive solar radiation.
The best hiking or fishing hat for hot weather can help protect us from the sun. Often, these hats come with special flaps and visors to keep as much sun off of our face as possible while still allowing us to see.
That being said, the best UV protection hats for hiking will have ear flaps and a wide-brimmed visor to keep our face in the shade even when we’re trekking through the sun.
Comfort
Any piece of gear or clothing that you wear in the backcountry should be comfortable, especially if it’s going to sit on your head all day, every day for an extended period of time.
There’s no magical formula for determining which hiking or fishing hat will fit best on your head, so it’s a good idea to try your outdoor hat on and wear it around the hat before you commit to wearing it on a long backpacking trip.
Breathability
The best hat for desert hiking will be highly breathable so that you can stay cool in the heat.
Generally speaking, these hats will be made of mesh or another highly breathable fabric.
These fabrics will also often be light in color to help reduce the absorption of heat that’s typical with dark-colored fabrics.
Plus, many of the best sun hats for hiking will be made with fabrics that wick, so when you do sweat, they’ll pull the moisture away from your body and help it evaporate more quickly to cool you down.
Durability
The very last thing an outdoor enthusiast would want is to have a new piece of gear fall apart on only the first or second adventure.
Rather, we’d all like for our summer hiking hats to last as long as possible, so durability should be a consideration whenever you’re shopping around for new gear.
Style
Style is a tricky feature to shop for because we all have a different vision of what we want out hot weather hiking hats to look like.
The hot weather hiking hats that offer the most sun protection aren’t always going to be the ones that will look super trendy.
Rather, the best hiking hats for hot weather are going to have wide brims, large protective flaps, and be made from a high-tech fabric to wick moisture.
While all of these features are critical for comfort and protection in the heat, they don’t exactly lend themselves toward style.
Thus, any discussion of style when it comes to the best sun hats for hiking will have to be one of prioritization.
If style is your main priority, then you’ll need to sacrifice some element of functionality.
On the other hand, if sun protection and functionality are top of your list of must-haves, then you’ll need to be willing to give up some style points on your next sun hat.
Conclusion: what is the best hiking sun hat?
At the end of the day, you can only wear one hat at a time, so you’d better make sure it’s one of the best hiking hats for hot weather if you’re going to venture out into the heat of the desert midday sun.
Although you have plenty of options to choose from – including five great hats that we reviewed right here – there can be only one winner of our head-to-head match-up.
Ultimately, our award for the best hiking hat for hot weather goes to the [amazon link=”B01641ENY2″ title=”Sunday Afternoons Ultra Adventure” /] for its unparalleled performance in a number of different categories.
As a piece of protection against the sun, the Ultra Adventure just narrowly misses out on full marks because it just can’t quite compete with the 360-degree coverage provided by the [amazon link=”B00MDLDXH6″ title=”Ddyoutdoors Sun hat” /].
That being said, it makes up for a second-place finish in the sun protection category by excelling in nearly all other categories, including durability, breathability, comfort, and style.
Thus, as a quality all-around hat, we award the Sunday Afternoon’s Ultra Adventure our award for the best sun hat for hiking.
When choosing a great hiking hat, however, it’s important that you find the model that’s just right for your needs.
So, with this and all of the other information we’ve given you in mind, you can go forth into the world of sun hats and find one that’s perfect for your adventures.
Happy trails!
