Hair dryer or not

My two cents is: plan on washing your hair less often -- but take the existence and quality of any hair dryer you might find into consideration also; you have a good plan. You may discover that you don't have to wash your hair everyday. It might be just the same on day two and three without a wash, as long as you don't sweat much in that time. Even if the hair dryer is decent you might not need a shampoo. JMHO. Ann.

In my experience most hotels have hair dryers so I don't worry about bringing my own anymore.

The reason I brought it up is that some European hotels' hair dryers are barely effective. People have described them as like having someone blow on your hair, or hanging your head out the window to catch a breeze. I've stayed in hotels with those kinds of "poor excuse for a hair dryer" appliances and it does come as an unwelcome surprise if your hairdo requires blow-dry styling.

Let's not forget hats and scarfs.

My wife has thick, coarse, mid-length hair which stays damp at the neck and does need to be well-dried before she can comfortably go our for the day after a shampooing.

She still doesn't take a blow dryer. (I can always find her an adequate dryer to borrow,... always.)

A 'Flat Iron' she does take, but at the expense of a pair of shoes. (I carry her second pair, and if she wanted a third--even slippers or sandals--it would probably have to be in exchange for the hair tool.)

It never fails lately: if I take my hair dryer, every place I stay has one. If I don't bring mine, then I need it. So I bring my super-compact, dual-voltage hair dryer anyway. It's extremely lightweight and takes up little space, but the past 3 trips I've wound up just carrying it around Europe. B&B's all seem to have them now, and even a hotel without a hair dryer in the room will likely have one at the front desk to loan.

Still, as long as it's not cumbersome, it's better to bring one and not need it than the other way 'round. It can even come in handy if you need to speed up the drying of your hand-washed clothing in a damp, rainy climate.

An alternative to the above no-wash advice: you can also utilize that handy scarf to cover your unwashed hair ;-)

I would still wash my hair every day even if there was only cold water in the shower! But, I do have my stylist cut it shorter when I'm traveling and lower my expectations of how my hair should look - after all, I'm on vacation. And yes, the hair dryers at almost all of our hotels during the last vacation to Switzerland & Italy were "hand warmers" at best.

I'm with Cyn, I take my very lightweight travel hair dryer as "insurance". Didn't use it the last trip but was glad to have in just in case.

Washing your hair daily is bad for it as it as it strips it of its natural oils and can lead to frizzy dry damaged hair so I agree with you that it is a good habit to abandon.

Nope, I've ditched the hairdryer. Every time I packed it, there was one available in the hotel. Granted, not as good as mine at home and it does make a difference in the styling outcome, but hey, it's a vacay.....I'm going to forgo the hairdryer for valuable packing space for something I really will use every trip.

I guess I'll put the dual voltage mini travel hairdryer in the "maybe" pile and see how much room is left after the "must have" items are packed.

I prefer to shower about an hour before I go to bed and just let my hair air dry. Haven't owned a hairdryer in ages.

I have found decent hair dryers in all of the hotels I have stayed in. That said and with fairly long hair, I am a wash and go type woman. I don't much care if my hair is very dry as it will dry on its own. Perhaps have your stylist give you an easier care hair cut that will dry fine on its' own rather than a style that needs lots of product and a hair dryer.

Even though I live in Europe and have the right voltage dryer for here, I still have never considered bringing it along and have never regretted that decision. Takes up too much space and the weight can be better used for something else.

We are just finishing up our trip and fly home tomorrow. I debated back and forth on the hair dryer and did finally pack it. Hotels in Munich, Budapest and Prague, and Viking ship all had excellent hair dryers. We only really considered carrying it with us this time because we were staying in two separate friends' homes and didn't want to be a nuisance. Turns out the dryer was used to dry clothes because our friends in Berlin, with a huge two story home and a full basement, only have a teeny tiny studio apartment sized washing machine (about the size of a two drawer file cabinet) and no dryer! She has an array of racks she dries clothes on and it took our first load two days to dry and for our emergency second load it was nice to have the hair dryer assist in the drying process. We had to leave Germany early because of rail strike and now are in an apartment in Paris with a built in dryer that hardly puts out any air, so we'll pull dryer out here, too.

Faith, that's quite a story, LOL. Just goes to show, you never know, it might be a waste of space to bring the HD but then again it might be a real life saver!