Jus got back from three weeks in the land of the long white cloud and the short brown bird. Amazing country. Jealous of anyone who lives there.
Anyway, NZ is the perfect place to be barefoot and it seems to be socially acceptable there. After spending a few days seeing people in stores and walking around shoeless I decided to go for it. Spent at least 85% of my time from there out barefoot or in my VFFs (a product they've only had for six months according to one outdoor store salesman). Probably more since all the footwear I brought was VFFs and slippahs. Went on three barefoot trail hikes and did plenty of city hiking sans shoes. Also did one barefoot run on the beach, which seemed like a good idea at the time but running on loose sand barefoot causes friction, which causes (on me) blisters on toe tips. D'oh!
At some point in the near future I'll post some pictures, but we took over 1500 so culling through those will take some time.
If you've never been to New Zealand, you gotta go. I can't wait to go back and we just landed last night.
Anyway, NZ is the perfect place to be barefoot and it seems to be socially acceptable there. After spending a few days seeing people in stores and walking around shoeless I decided to go for it. Spent at least 85% of my time from there out barefoot or in my VFFs (a product they've only had for six months according to one outdoor store salesman). Probably more since all the footwear I brought was VFFs and slippahs. Went on three barefoot trail hikes and did plenty of city hiking sans shoes. Also did one barefoot run on the beach, which seemed like a good idea at the time but running on loose sand barefoot causes friction, which causes (on me) blisters on toe tips. D'oh!
At some point in the near future I'll post some pictures, but we took over 1500 so culling through those will take some time.
If you've never been to New Zealand, you gotta go. I can't wait to go back and we just landed last night.