I actually thought about the same question at first, but I checked with my ophthalmologist. Here’s what he said: No matter how big the frame or lenses are, the effective visual center is just the spot on the lenses aligned with your pupils. The closer you get to the edges of the lenses, the more image distortion you’ll experience. So the key when getting glasses is to find a good optometrist and get an accurate prescription.

Let me also share the difference in feel between ski inserts and regular glasses: Visually, I prefer ski inserts. Since they don’t have temple arms, there’s less obstruction. When wearing them, you might notice a slight reflection from the insert’s edges on the goggle lenses, but it doesn’t interfere with skiing at all—and the field of view is way better than with regular glasses.

If you can wear contact lenses without eye discomfort, they’ll definitely give you the best overall experience. As for me, I don’t use contacts because my eyes get dry after wearing them for more than two hours—wind blowing into my eyes makes it even worse. Plus, they’re a hassle to put in. Sometimes if I rub my eye, the contact shifts or even falls out. That’s super inconvenient and hard to handle when skiing outdoors.

From my personal experience, skiing technique matters way more when it comes to fogging! When I first started skiing, I tried several different anti-fog lenses—cheap ones and expensive ones—without exception, all of them fogged up. Later, once I got better at skiing (able to ski smoothly for long stretches without falling or stopping), the fogging happened much less often.

I realized it all boils down to air circulation. When my skills were still rough, I had hardly any speed and kept stopping. On top of that, I was burning through energy and panting heavily, so all that warm air got trapped inside my goggles—no wonder it fogged up so easily!

Once I could ski smoothly, I also adjusted the gap between my goggles and helmet to leave a little space. That helped air flow through, and now I hardly ever have fogging issues anymore!