BootsnAll Travel Community

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Furthermore, if you want to be truly miserable, wear some expensive, immediately-stinky, "wicking", nylon/polyester shirts in the tropics and see how much you like them. You won't.
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Ditto 110% with that. I only wear 100% cotton or 100% linen - none of that linen/viscoes crap either.
I wore low-cut 100% cotton knit singlets with a 100% linen shirt over it. The skin is covered by fabric, and the flapping of the shirt allows for air. Only the skin area below the neck needs sunscreen. I have very fair skin and I'm yet to suffer sun burn.

Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world and the Anti-Cancer Council of Australia recommend a long sleeved shirt and to keep covered up and not go out in the middle of the day.

The only SPF clothing they do recommend is swimwear and a legionnaires cap for children because most kiddies out here spend all day at the beach. I would have bought myself one but they're not cotton - well that and the fact they don't look at all attractive!

I've taken cotton clothes with me and wind up regretting it in hot places or long trips. It takes too long to dry and wrinkles like crazy. I just picked up some REI Sahara tech tees:
http://www.rei.com/product/732432
I haven't taken them on a trip yet but I've worn them around the house including workouts, yard work, etc and they aren't smelling yet. They fit great and are at least as comfortable as my cotton clothes.

Good information, thanks everyone!

I'm quite pale myself (red hair & freckles) and bought a few of those high-tech, long-sleeved, spf 30 travel shirts for a trip a few years back.

They were ok, though since then, I've switched to just packing cotton shirts with long sleeves...much more comfortable and they wash better. I find the high-tech fabrics tend to get smelly after a while, even if you wash them well.

It's also so much easier to blend in when wearing regular cotton clothing.

One thing I've noticed about "dry-fit" or other such shirts, is that when I wear them out to go jogging (i.e., exposed to sunlight and sweat, etc.), they develop this funky smell. It's not a body order or any bodily type of smell, its more like a synthetic, garbagey type of smell. hard to describe, but I hate it.

Strangely, when i wear this same shirt while working out in the gym, I don't get the smell. its only when I'm outside and exposed to sun and wind that it happens.

And obviously, my cotton shirts don't do any of this.

Hi, I'm a huge huge nerd and this thread makes me sad

Although I'm not a total world nomad as it seems many here are, I spent 5+ weeks backpacking around Europe and doing the hostel thing on a shoe-string in 2003 (heatstroke year!) and what I found in my limited time seems to differ from what I'm hearing here. I fully admit I was/am young and generally unexperienced so could use any guidance, but here is what I found and plan to bring on my 5+ month SE Asia trip this July:

I wore two pairs of nylon convertible pants literally the entire trip. They had mesh liners, I never wore underwear, and I could zip off the legs and swim, put them on when it was cold, etc. I was on a very very minimal budget so I of course washed all of my clothing in the sink as I went, and the fact that the nylon material dried quickly was great as my clean pants would always be ready to wear in an hour or two. To Asia I again plan on bringing two pairs of nylon convertible pants with liners, and that's all for pants/shorts/etc.

For the top, I'm still torn but I'm leaning towards bringing two nylon long sleeve shirts like this: http://columbia.com/Product/4/Titanium/41050/Shirts/770...t.aspx?viewAll=False I realize that this is probably what a lot of you (rightfully perhaps?) laugh at when you see people wearing, and maybe I should go a different route, but I wore the shirt for a day around town and it feels very very light and very comfortable, and I figured that I can roll up the sleeves when I'm walking around town, and if/when I go to a temple or need to dress more conservatively I can wear it as a decently respectable long sleeved shirt. Along with a shirt (or two) like this, which again will dry very quickly, I'll also probably bring 2 or 3 plain white cotton t-shirts, which is what I wore 99% of the time in Europe.

I also planned on just bringing some 1$ WalMart flip flops, but I've read in a few places that to get into many temples you need (at least) to have sandals with a back strap on them.

Any input?

Wait until a really hot, muggy day in Michigan this summer. Put on that Columbia Sportswear nylon shirt, put on your thoroughly loaded backpack and hike down to the bus station in your town. Report back with shirt results.

This is a great thread. I'm off to the middle east & north africa this summer, & it's giving me a lot of good food for thought on what and what not to go for.

Totally agree on the smelliness of some synthetic shirts. The Ex Officio DryFlyLite shirts are the biggest waste of money because within less than an hour, without fail, they smell like you washed and soaked them in sweat. I still have no idea how our shirts smelled like we rolled around in sweat after a bitterly cold day in the Italian mountains. On the other hand, we are both big fans of the cotton-feel synthetic shirts (like those manufactured by Under Armour, Royal Robbins, and REI) --- they feel and smell like cotton but dry much quicker than a regular cotton shirt.