Why You Should Wear Polarised Sunglasses While Travelling

Your flights are booked, your itinerary is planned, your suitcase is (almost) packed and your travels await you. Have you remembered everything? Probably not. But that’s fine, you can pick up most forgotten essentials on your trip.

But not all of them. It may be tempting to buy a cheap pair of sunglasses at the airport or from a beachside vendor, but we certainly wouldn’t advise it. Our eyes are precious, and it’s worth making the effort to adequately protect them.

You only get one pair. Treat them to some polarised sunglasses.

What Are Polarised Lenses?

Polarised lenses are lenses which have had a chemical film applied in order to help them filter light.

When you see something, your eye perceives the light rays reflecting off of the objects you are looking at. These rays are often scattered, though the beams which bounce back from flat, reflective surfaces tend to be more intensely concentrated. This is why you sometimes experience glare when looking at surfaces like water, metal or snow. Glare can be dangerous, temporarily impairing your vision and potentially causing accidents. Snow blindness can burn your eyes. Even if your exposure to glare is mild, it has been proven to cause cataracts in the long-term. 

The chemical film on polarised lenses only leaves vertical openings for light, meaning they block out all horizontal rays and shield your eyes from the harmful glare that they produce.

The Other Benefits of Polarised Lenses

But filtering light like this does more than protect you against glare. Polarised lenses also make images appear sharper and more clear, particularly in bright light.

The image you see with polarised lenses will be slightly darker, but you will enjoy greater contrast and reduced colour distortion. Another result of reduced exposure to glare and reflection is reduced eye strain. Consequently, many people who wear polarised sunglasses for protracted periods of time claim to feel less tired.

These lenses also help you to see into water more clearly, making them ideal for water sports enthusiasts and people who like to fish.

Ultimately, polarised sunglasses are great for anybody spending lots of time outdoors. They will enhance your vision and make your eyes feel more comfortable in the short-term while protecting them from long-term damage.

Finding the Right Pair of Polarised Sunglasses

It’s important to remember that sunglasses offering UV protection are not the same as sunglasses with polarised lenses. UV protection by itself will not protect your eyes against certain reflected beams of light and glare. Ideally you should seek a pair with lenses that are polarised and provide UV protection. 

Polarised lenses are available for both prescription and non-prescription sunglasses. They can also be incorporated into bifocal sunglasses and can be combined with anti-scratch features if you desire.

There are simple ways to recognise a pair of sunglasses with polarised lenses. If you look at a reflective surface while wearing a pair of sunglasses, then again without them, you should notice an increase in contrast when using the sunglasses if their lenses are polarised.

You can also check by looking at an LCD screen. It is more difficult to see screens through polarised lenses than through the tinted lenses that are standard in most sunglasses. If your lenses are polarised, the screen will look very dark (or even black).

But if you want to play it safe and be assured of a quality product, the best way is to find a reputable seller. We’re big fans of The Sunglass Fix, which not only offers a huge range of high-quality lenses but is able to replace the lenses in your existing sunglasses, making them a unique sustainable option in a market known for throwaway consumerism.

After all, when it comes to your next big trip, your health is not the place you want to cut corners. We buy high-strength sunscreen to protect our skin. It’s vital that we properly protect our eyes too. Enjoying clearer vision while we protect them is an added bonus.

You can see your trip on the horizon. But you will see it better with a pair of polarised sunglasses.