So if you haven’t noticed ..**spoiler alert**I’m black..lol…and I’m au naturale. What that means is my hair doesn’t like salt water,heat, rain, chlorine water, I’m sure it doesn’t even like the wind, *eye roll*…but I do love my hair every unruly strand!! It just means for vacations I have to plan ahead of time for my hair. Now there are a lot of options at my disposal when it comes to hairstyles for vacation that will require minimum maintenance and longevity. I’ve tried quite a few and here are my best options in no particular order.

Crochet – This is a tried and true protective style, and until recently I’ve never considered it for vacation but since I have, its low key becoming my fave vacation hairstyle. Now I’m not referring to crochet braids or crochet twist, but the loose curl crochet. I have to make a disclaimer.. all crochet curls are not made equally…So research is required on the type of curls that work best for your vacation type. Personally I love a nice curly hair look and being able to obtain that look on a vacation is a plus, especially when going out at nights. Crochet hair is also great for water activity, and for me, water filled activities are a must on vacation so having a style that can get wet, dry quickly and retain its style is a win win. I have to admit crochet styles do require some maintenance, some mousse and other accessories, if you don’t mind the work give it a try and let me know what you think.

Box Braids/ Braided styles

Well for obvious reasons this had to be on my list. I mean it’s the OG! The foundation on which protective styles was built..lol.. This is probably the go-to style for all females who want a low maintenance vacation hair-do. It’s as simple and straightforward as it gets, you may choose to jazz it up by getting a bold color, long, short, big, small, I’ve seen so many variations of the traditional box braids, there should be a new name for it.. In addition to box braids you can also opt for a braided hairstyle, which I’ve done on a number of vacations. I’ve done fulani braids, the famous lemonade braids, 1/2 up and 1/2 down, up-do…wow I didn’t realize I’ve done that many lol.. I guess I like the low maintenance of it..but it can take a bit longer to dry when wet and can feel a bit heavy as well..but the 1 thing I didn’t like is that you just can’t dress up a braided hairstyle, it’s way to casual at least in my opinion. Like you know when you see a beautiful woman dressed up and her hair is in braids..It’s equivalent to seeing a man in a tailored fitted suit and horrible shoes… it just messes up the look…Even though I have seen some really creative ways to style box braids on youtube..and I do have a friend that always look amazing in her box braids, it’s literally her look, and she looks stunning..Hmmm I’m literally talking myself into getting braids again lol… Nevertheless, I haven’t completely written box braids/braided styles off my list.

Weaves/ Extensions

I was never a fan of weaves on vacation, simply because it requires wayyyy too much maintenance and who wants that on vacation. I mean the whole point is to be relaxed and stress free and weaves on vacation gives annoyance. However, weaves have come a long way! No more do you only have the straight or wavy options. Now there are sooo many options of weave textures that requires way less maintenance and you can match some extensions to your own natural hair texture, which leaves a lot to be desired. On my family vacation to St. Lucia, I tried microlinks with kinky curly hair texture. It was a nice change but, personally for my hair texture it was too much volume and an excruciating amount of maintenance. If you didn’t know microlinks is not a protective style in fact your entire hair is out, woven in between the tracks. The key is to find a texture that blends well with your hair. With that said, I personally won’t recommend it for beach vacations, as the required maintenance is not worth it. I still love microlinks and have gotten it many times post this vacation but I doubt I will get it for another beach vacation.

Now traditional weaves might hold up a bit better since your natural hair is braided down and the weave is sewn on top, thus making it protective. Stylist these days are so creative and talented coming up with methods on how to install weaves using the traditional method mixed with crochet or mixed with micro links. I will say for my next vacation I do plan to use this method of combining traditional weaves with crochet to the front. I love the versatility of weaves/extensions as well as crochet, so it will give me the best of both worlds. Im looking forward to this style!

Wigs

Confession..I have never gone on vacation with a wig! but I do see the appeal. The draw for me is having a variation of styles on 1 vacation; long, short, curly, straight sooo many options. But one can imagine you will need to know a thing or 2 about installing wigs if you so choose to go with this option. I haven’t quite work out how wigs will work for beach vacation, despite me doing ample YouTube research on women wearing wigs and using specific wig glues to test out which glue provides the maximum hold even after being submerged in water. The results were promising so I may try it on my next vacation…Maybe 🙂