There’s a very specific kind of pre-holiday admin that nobody talks about. Not the passport checks, not the packing cubes, not the seventeen browser tabs you have open for restaurant bookings. I mean the quiet but entirely serious question of: what am I going to do about my hair?
*This is a collaborative post
I know how that sounds. But hear me out. Over the years of travelling with the girls, both in the UK and further afield, I have learnt a few things the hard way. One of them is that a salon appointment is not something to sort out on a whim once you’ve arrived somewhere new. If you colour your hair, if you have a specific cut that requires a specific kind of skill, or if you’ve got a longer trip coming up and your roots are going to become a problem around day ten, you need a plan before you leave home.
This is now genuinely part of my travel preparation. And I want to explain why, because the reasons go further than vanity.
Table of Contents
The Patch Test Problem Nobody Warns You About
Here is the thing that took me a while to really internalise. If you colour your hair and you want to get it done at an unfamiliar salon while you’re away, you cannot just walk in and book a colour for the same day or even the next morning. A responsible salon will not do it. A good one should not do it.
The reason is the patch test. Allergic reactions to hair dye are more common than most people assume, and the NHS is clear that symptoms can take up to 72 hours to appear. That means a patch test needs to be done at least 48 hours before any colour is applied. Not as a box-ticking exercise, but because the chemical responsible for the majority of reactions, PPD (para-phenylenediamine), is present in most permanent and semi-permanent dyes, particularly darker shades, and research published in peer-reviewed literature shows it is among the most potent contact allergens known. An allergy to it can also develop over time, even if you have used the same dye brand for years without issue.
What this means practically, for anyone booking a holiday colour appointment, is that you need to find the salon before you go, make contact with them, potentially arrange the patch test on the first or second day of your trip, and then schedule the actual service for later in the week. It is entirely doable. But it requires forward planning, not a spontaneous phone call from your hotel room.
How I Actually Find a Salon Worth Trusting in an Unfamiliar Place
This is where it gets practical, and where I have developed a proper system over time.
My first port of call now is brand-led directories. If you already use a particular professional haircare brand and you know the results your own stylist gets with their products, finding a salon that is certified to use those same products is a shortcut to a baseline level of quality. I use the Davines salon locator for this, particularly when we’re travelling to or within the US, to find a nearby salon that works with Davines. Davines is an Italian professional brand, B Corp certified, with a network of trained salon partners, and the locator lets you search by location to find verified salons nearby. When you’re somewhere unfamiliar, knowing a salon has been trained by and accountable to a specific professional brand gives you a lot more to go on than a star rating from a stranger on the internet.
The second thing I look at is whether the salon is registered with a professional body. In the UK, the National Hair and Beauty Federation (NHBF) has a code of practice that accredited salons must follow, covering everything from hygiene standards to how they handle complaints. When I am booking anywhere at home before we travel, I use that as a filter. It does not guarantee you’ll love the cut, but it does mean the basics of safety and professional conduct are in place.
Third, I look at the salon’s Instagram rather than just its Google reviews. Reviews tell you about customer service and atmosphere. The Instagram grid tells you whether the colourist actually knows what they are doing. Look for consistency across multiple clients, not just the six best photos they have ever taken.
What to Tell a New Salon When You Call Them
This part matters more than people realise. Ringing a salon and asking “can you fit me in on Tuesday?” is not enough when you are a new client with colour-treated hair.
Tell them exactly what you currently have on your hair. If you have had highlights, balayage, or a root tint, say so. Tell them the brand if you know it. Bring a reference photo. And ask them directly how long they recommend between your patch test and your appointment. If they say they do not do patch tests, or brush past the question, find somewhere else.
Also ask what products they use. This is not just about brand loyalty. Knowing what a salon works with tells you a lot about their investment in ongoing training and quality. Salons that carry professional-only lines are supplied by companies that also require stylist education. That is a different setup from a high-street salon using supermarket-equivalent products.
The Logistics of Getting an Appointment Mid-Trip
Planning Around the Kids’ Schedule
With three children in tow, any solo salon appointment requires military-level co-ordination. I tend to book either first thing in the morning when Tristan can do breakfast with all three of them, or during school hours when we are on a longer trip and the girls are in some kind of activity or club.
For shorter trips this usually means I do the patch test on day one or two while Tristan takes the children to a park or beach, and then I have the actual appointment on day four or five. It’s not complicated but it only works if you have already identified the salon and had the conversation before you leave home. Trying to sort all of this after you arrive, when you’re also unpacking, finding your bearings and keeping three children from losing shoes and snacks, is a recipe for it simply not happening.
When You Are Travelling Solo or on a Parents-Only Break
This is genuinely when the salon appointment becomes not just manageable but something to look forward to properly. On the rare and wonderful occasions when Tristan and I have had a couple of nights away without the children, I have booked a hair appointment as an actual part of the trip. Not squeezed around other things. Just planned as something that is for me, that takes an hour or two, and that I arrive at without anyone needing a wee or dropping a snack onto the salon floor.
In that context, finding a good salon before you travel is less about logistics and more about intention. You are choosing to spend some of that child-free time on yourself, and the quality of the place you walk into matters. Taking ten minutes to research it properly at home, before the trip begins, means you get to spend that time enjoying it rather than regretting the gamble of walking into somewhere random.
The Hygiene and Safety Angle Most Travellers Overlook
This is not something I was conscious of in my early travelling years, but it is worth knowing. Salon tools, if not properly sterilised between clients, carry a real cross-contamination risk. In the UK, salons are required under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 to manage the chemicals they use safely, and the Health and Safety Executive publishes specific guidance for hairdressing businesses covering everything from sterilisation of scissors and clippers to ventilation. Not every country you travel to has an equivalent framework, and not every salon, even in the UK, meets the standards it should.
This is another reason why going through a professional brand network or a registered body is sensible. Salons that are formally affiliated with a brand or trade association are subject to checks that a random walk-in is not.
The Broader Habit Worth Developing
I have started thinking of the salon lookup in the same way I think about finding a good GP or a reliable local pharmacy when we visit somewhere for more than a week. It is part of treating wherever you are as a real place you are temporarily living in rather than just a postcard to pass through. That shift in thinking changes how you prepare.
It also means that by the time you actually sit down in the salon chair, in a city you do not normally call home, with a cup of tea someone made for you and no one asking you anything for fifty minutes, you can actually enjoy it. And that alone, for anyone travelling with young children, is worth every bit of the advance planning.
