The 6 Best Blue Light Glasses for Travel, Tested and Reviewed

Feb 20, 2025

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We tested blue light glasses to find the best ones for business trips, movie marathons on long flights, e-readers, and excessive screen time.

Barbara Bellesi Zito is a writer with nearly 20 years of experience covering lifestyle and home. From handy gadgets that make work and travel easier to clever hacks that make life in general easier, she writes about it all.

In This Article

Travel + Leisure

Life in the digital age means we rarely get a break from screens, whether it’s a work computer, smartphone, TV, tablet, or e-reader. All that screen time means more exposure to blue light, which has a shorter wavelength believed to cause headaches, eyestrain, and even disrupted sleep. Speaking of which, if you were planning to get some sleep on your flight after watching a few episodes of your favorite show, you might consider packing a pair of blue light glasses.

While research isn’t conclusive on their protection — though they cause no harm — we tested 21 pairs of blue light glasses over the course of a work week to see which ones reduced our eyestrain, headaches, and other symptoms of excessive screen time. These are our top choices for travel, whether you’re heading out on a business trip, a long-haul flight, or you just want to spend hours in front of your e-reader on the beach.

These affordable glasses are lightweight yet extremely durable.

They may not be a good fit for people with bigger heads.

Don’t be fooled by these glasses' featherlight construction. During our tests, we tugged and toyed with them and concluded that they are fairly indestructible. The frame material feels slightly textured, which enables the glasses to hug your nose gently and stay put — so no fussing around when you’re spending time on your laptop at the airport or in your hotel room. The lenses are clear, so our eyes adjusted to wearing them right away (good news if you’ve been averse to tinted frames).

The glasses come with two protective carrying cases, one soft and one hard, making it even easier to stash them in a bag. We also like that these glasses come with a tool to test the blue light refraction. At this very reasonable price point, you might consider buying two so you can keep one at home and one in your carry-on.

The Details: 5.29 ounces | Case included | Free returns with Amazon Prime

They offer a comfortable, secure fit that won't slip off your face when you're switching between devices while working.

Your lens choice could add up to $100 to the final purchase price.

The Hooper frame from Caddis provides a comfortable, secure fit, perfect for switching between multiple screens and digital devices without slipping. We wore these lightweight, wire-rim frames throughout our workday and experienced good clarity with no eyestrain. Considering that we have had eyestrain in the past after only about an hour of screen time, we’d recommend these for anyone spending long days at a computer screen like you would on a work trip.

The Hooper frames are made from nickel-free metal alloy and come in two color options: polished gold and polished gunmetal. They are available as readers or progressives. You can further personalize your blue light protection with one of six different scratch-resistant lenses, including classic, light green or light yellow, anti-reflective, and two light-responsive lenses — one that transitions to gray and the other to bronze.

The Details: Nickel-free metal alloy | Readers or progressives with various lens powers | Return or exchange within 60 days

These stylish glasses are easy to customize with your prescription and preferred lens type, and they come in two sizes for a flattering fit.

There’s no cost savings if you buy these in the uncorrected version.

You don’t have to decide between protecting your eyes from blue light and actually being able to see, thanks to the Thurston frames from Warby Parker. If you’re shopping online, take advantage of the virtual frame try-ons so you can really get an idea of how these glasses will look on you.

The Thurston Glasses come in three different shades, but more importantly, they come in two different styles — medium and wide — for a more flattering fit. Aside from looks, these lightweight frames feel good to wear; in fact, we forgot we even had them on. After a few days of wearing them, we noticed that our eyes felt less tired and strained than they normally would be at that point without having worn the glasses.

The Details: Lightweight stainless steel | Prescription option available | UV protection | Case included | Return or exchange within 30 days of purchase

They offer a comfortable fit with less glare — perfect for long workdays with many video calls.

They are pricier than others on our list.

If you wear any type of glasses, you know well that your nose, ears, and especially eyes need a break after a while. So it was quite refreshing to put on these Jemison frames from Felix Gray and wear them for several workdays in a row without a bit of discomfort. These frames offered a comfortable, no-slip fit that didn’t aggravate the bridge of our nose. Even better, we felt less eyestrain after wearing these glasses. Aside from wearing them during a long workday, we wouldn’t board a long flight without them. The included hard-shell case makes it easy to protect them while traveling, too.

These are pricier than others on the list, but we think they’re worth the splurge for passing the Zoom test; we found the lenses to emit less glare so you won’t see your lenses reflected on a video call.

The Details: Hand-finished organic acetate | Prescription option available | UV protection | Case included | Free exchanges and 30-day money-back guarantee

These stylish glasses have a flattering frame shape and are available in magnified and non-corrected versions.

You will need to buy a case separately.

We’ve had frequent headaches and eyestrain from too much screen time in the past, so we were thrilled to notice that after one day of wearing the Peepers, we didn’t have a headache. Even better, after a few wears, we noticed significantly less eyestrain. These lenses are clear and have various levels of magnification. We tested a pair at 1.0 and found it was perfect for our needs.

We loved the deeper nose bridge on these glasses, which allowed for a snug fit that won’t slip off during your travels while making you look stylish and put together. Thanks to the flexible arms — which didn’t hurt the back of our ears — they’re easy to take on and off. We found the shape of these glasses to be quite flattering, and we love the way they look in the two classic color options: black and tortoise. Although these frames are well-made, we do wish they came with a sunglasses case or a travel pouch to protect them when stowed away in a bag or pocket.

The Details: Magnification and non-corrected styles | UV protection | Free returns with Amazon Prime

These lightweight frames come in tons of colors at a budget-friendly price that makes it easy to buy several pairs.

Not all colors are available at all magnification levels.

The Readerest blue light-blocking frames are lightweight and offer a snug and secure fit without feeling tight across the bridge of the nose or the ears. They were comfortable to wear for extended periods of time, and we were able to see clearly with no issues. After a long day of looking at screens — both phone and laptop — our eyes felt less strained than before.

Aside from eye relief from blue light, we liked that these were stylish enough to wear on video calls for work. Choose from 14 different colors, including classic colors like black and tortoise and fashion-forward colors like peach and clear. Need them to be readers? Choose from more than a dozen different magnification levels, though not all colors will be available at all levels. Best of all, these are the most affordable option on this list, so you can even buy several if you want a backup pair for traveling.

The Details: Magnification option available | UV protection | Free returns with Amazon Prime

We tested 21 pairs of blue light glasses, whittling them down to the six that made our list. For our tests, we started the first half of our work day without the glasses. After four hours of regular screen time without glasses, we did a self-check for Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS), which includes symptoms like headaches, dry or itchy eyes, eyestrain, and sensitivity to light. We donned a pair of blue light glasses for the second half of our work day. At the end of the day, we did another self-check, noting if any of our symptoms had improved, gotten worse, or remained the same.

We continued to wear the blue light glasses for an entire work week at our computers, conducting another self-assessment at the end to compare how our eyes felt now to how they felt when we first started wearing the glasses. We based our insight on this final assessment and selected the six best blue light glasses for our list.

It’s one thing to see frames you like online, but they might not actually flatter your face or match your style in person. That’s why virtual try-ons come in clutch. Warby Parker and Felix Gray are two retailers who have added a virtual try-on to their online customer experience. So go ahead: turn on your phone or computer camera, position your face as directed, and see what your blue light glasses will look like on you.

While it’s always nice to have frames that flatter your face, the actual fit is more important, especially if you plan to wear them for long work days. If you can try before you buy — or at least take advantage of a free return/exchange — do it. You’ll want a fit that’s snug enough so the frames won’t slide around, but not too tight that they pinch your nose or irritate your ears.

Lens color is important when it comes to blue light glasses. You might prefer clear lenses for screen time during work because it’ll be easy to forget you even have them on. Still, you might choose a tinted lens for style preference or, more importantly, the type of screen you’re looking at.

For example, yellow is often touted as a good choice for gamers, while blue lenses work to reduce glare — a good choice if you’re on frequent video calls. If you need blue light lenses for outdoors, check for those that offer UV protection, as well as a transition to a darker shade to protect your eyes like sunglasses.

Protect your blue light glasses on the go by slipping them into a protective pouch or travel case. Some, like the Benicci Blue Light Blocking Glasses, come with one, and Warby Parker also sends a free case with every purchase. These cases will protect the lenses from being scratched or otherwise damaged while traveling, plus they’re usually compact enough to slide into the inner pocket of a bag or carry-on so you always have your blue light glasses with you.

The colors in the visible light spectrum all have different energy levels and wavelengths. Blue light, which is emitted from the LEDs (light-emitting diode) in our computers, smartphones, tablets, and TVs, has a higher energy and shorter wavelength than other colors. Since there is some research that indicates a connection between this blue light and eye damage, it’s important to protect our eyes when we can’t limit our screen time. Although the research isn’t conclusive on whether blue light glasses completely save the day, some people believe that blue light glasses can help alleviate eyestrain and other symptoms of too much screentime.

You could always tote blue light glasses on any trip — especially if they come with a travel case — but they’re especially good on those long-haul flights where you’ll be binge-watching TV and movies or reading on a tablet for hours on end. If you’re traveling for business and plan to spend most of the flight working on a laptop, blue light glasses will also come in handy.

No, they don’t, which is why it’s important to read the specs of the pair(s) you have your eye on. Aside from blocking blue light, some glasses offer UV protection, which means you’ll have eye protection outdoors in the sunlight, too.

When you purchase a pair of blue light glasses, be sure to test them thoroughly during several workdays or gaming sessions. With each of the selections that made our best blue light glasses list, we noted fewer headaches and less eyestrain during testing after our daily screen time. If your glasses aren’t producing similar results, take advantage of the retailer’s exchange/return window and try out a new pair.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology says there's no clear evidence that that blue light glasses reduce eye strain from computer use. While blue light glasses don't harm your eyes, it's always recommended to take regular breaks form screens to reduce eye strain and discomfort.

For this story, Barbara Bellesi Zito put on her own pair of Warby Parkers — sadly, she opted out of the blue light blocking capability for her lenses — to pore over the testing insights from our Travel + Leisure team. An avid reader who won’t take a trip without her Kindle, Barbara is now trying to decide which color of Peepers to get.

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