Being bare foot probably goes way back to my youth in NYC. There, I explored the sensations of putting my toes and feet into mud puddles and slushy snow. But conforming to convention (especially in the City) required that I wear shoes in "normal" life.
Skip forward to present times, as a long time resident of Oakland CA, I saw a neighbor with VFF shoes one day, several years ago, and I thought "how cool!" So I got a pair of my own and started wearing them to the gym and sometimes wore them instead of sneakers for informal situations. Occasionally, I slipped them off at the gym and exercised barefoot and really enjoyed the experience.
One day, early last year, I saw a couple at the farmers market who were both barefoot and again I thought "how cool!" Then on Labor Day last year, I decided to try walking and jogging around my neighborhood bare foot. Again, I liked it a lot though the first months involved blisters, soreness, stares, and quizzical queries about my new and unusual practice.
Whereas athletics were never a big part of my life and in fact jogging and running were at the bottom of my list of exercise activities, bare foot running has become my favorite, at least during the past few months. Instead of knee pain or other discomfort after a short jog, not to mention the utter boredom to me, barefoot running is fun. As others have noted, I really do notice the changing earth and ground I am on and it's wonderful. Walking around barefoot has also been fun though I am not sure I will adopt it as a way of life. However, I will go bare foot when the felling hits me now that I have less inhibitions for barefooting! LOL. Finding BRS has helped my transition to bare footing tremendously.