Two surprising things: a new installment in the Useful Travel Items series and… raving about Crocs. Yeah, I’m a convert. I never thought I’d be telling the internet how much I enjoy my ugly plastic clogs but here we are. On one main condition, anyway. They’re not my favourite shoes ever but Crocs are the best glamping shoe.
I don’t even have the excuse of being sponsored or #kindlygifted. I bought the things of my own volition with my own money. I wore them around the house for a week as the novelty seeped into my soul and then I wore them almost the entire weekend when I was glamping. Yes, the glamping trip. I’ll get to it, just as soon as I’ve figured out what I want to say about it.
On previous glamping trips. I’ve taken my mountain sandals or my flipflops or both. I love my mountain sandals. From the moment the evening temperature creeps above “pretty chilly” until mid-November, I live in my mountain sandals. The original pair were Hi-Tec and my current pair are North Face, which is simply because Hi-Tec no longer do the style I like, or at least not in women’s sizes – a nice solid sole suitable for climbing mountain and thick velcro straps, two across my foot and one around my heel. Open toes. Tevas are too flimsy, closed toes are too shoe-like. These are Hedgehog II, I think. They were two or three times the price I wanted to pay but they should last me at least a decade and I will wear them day in, day out, throughout spring, summer and autumn and I can climb mountains and wade through rivers in them, so the cost per wear will be minuscule. But – when you just want to slip them on to run cold, wet and half-naked back from the hot tub to the shepherd’s hut, you’re not going to take the time to get the straps properly around your foot, but they’ll fall off if you don’t. So they fail the slip-on test.
My flipflops are old. People on the internet describe clothes as “old” if they’re two years old. I bought these flipflops in the summer of 1996. These things are twenty-five and a half years old. Cheap foam supermarket flipflops are not meant to live to 25. And they’re nowhere near their death, either. Now, technically, these are my mum’s flipflops. I had an identical pair two sizes smaller but the heel more or less wore through and also my feet have reached their adult size since then and so I commandeered Mum’s. They’re not as decorative as they once were. The colour has definitely faded under a quarter-century of grime. But they’re still very wearable and I will continue to wear them, on occasions when nothing else is more suitable. But – when you jump into them to get out of the hot tub and then leave them on the floor overnight, they don’t dry. That foam soaks up the water and it takes ages for them to dry out properly. Last year, I rapidly discovered it’s very unpleasant to put on wet, slippery, squeaky flipflops first thing in the morning to hurry to the woodstore in the morning.
Enter Crocs.
I’ve always liked the idea of them and I’m not sure what’s taken so long for me to invest in a pair? Was I put off by the hate? Because they are ugly and people are very quick to point that out. Did they always strike me as a joke rather than a practical wearable pair of shoes? Did I not believe the hype about comfort? Or is it simply that I’ve never had any need for them? My sandals have fulfilled 90% of my open-shoe needs for the last twenty years and my flipflops have fulfilled the other 10%.
Well, I’ve found a need and I can’t quite believe I’ve ever cared what anyone thought they looked like. It turns out they’re the best glamping shoe and although I haven’t tried them for it, probably the best camping shoe too.
They slip on easily, whether they’re in 4×4 mode or clog mode, so they’re much less fuss to put on than the sandals. You can wear them with socks without them looking any stupider than you already do. They dry quickly, so if you need to go outside first thing in the morning, you don’t get wet feet and they don’t slide around. I lived in the things. Why would I bother putting on my real shoes and doing up the laces, or velcro up my sandals, when I could just kick my Crocs on?
I wouldn’t wear them for my daily walk. I wouldn’t wear them for watersports or river crossings. I wouldn’t wear them for any occasion when I wanted to be sure my shoes would stay on all the time and, to be honest, I’d rather not wear them in public, even though I’m putting pictures of myself in them all over the internet. But for pottering around a glampsite or campsite, I think these are the ones. When I talked about what I’d do differently if/when I do the Laugavegur Trail again, I was thinking about shoes for the campsite for the evening. I took Primark-Converse last time and honestly, who can be bothered with that many laces after a long day of hiking in the mountains? But my Crocs – they weigh nothing and they’re easy to wear. They’re just designed for ambling around the campsite. Going to the shower block. Shared dinner in the mess tent in grubby clothes we haven’t just been walking in. Perfect.
They’re waterproof. You can wash them under a tap and be wearing them again in ten minutes. Add some washing-up liquid if they’re particularly filthy. The internet says they’re cheap. I was actually astonished at how expensive they are, which is why mine are the Baya style, not the Classic. They were the ones on sale and for more 30% off the price of the Classics. I still can’t figure out why the Baya ones exist – other than having the word CROC cut out of the side and a shape that looks more chiselled than rounded, they seem identical to the Classics. They’re not a special colour or pattern, they don’t have fur or a special sole or a special lining. They’re just Classics slightly reshaped and quite a bit cheaper.
If you haven’t gathered by now, mine are red. I suppose yellow would have been a little more on-brand but I like red, I like red shoes and I thought it was a more practical colour to get dirty out and about. But really, when you can pick almost any colour you want, how do you decide? Having seen myself in the shepherd’s hut, I think red was a good decision. It went well with whatever I wanted to wear and because it’s not light and bright, it kind of grounded my outfit. Not that I wore “outfits”. I put on whatever was suitable for the temperature and the fact that it was going to get covered in mud and ash and smell of woodsmoke. But it didn’t look insane when I wore them with the red t-shirt and it brightened up jeans and a black top.
Yes, I’m attempting to justify my possession of Crocs as a fashion choice, as if I’ve ever made a fashion choice in my life. In true Juliet style, I thought they were a practical shoe that solved a particular problem, which is mostly how I look at footwear. I sigh a little when my walking boots have pink accents, because outdoor footwear in women’s sizes always has to come with either pink or turquoise highlights – got to make them pretty, after all – but I rarely consider what the colour or style is actually going to look like. The only time I see myself full-length is in the mirror in the back bedroom and this is a shoes-off household, so I don’t see the shoes with whatever I’m wearing.
So the Crocs were a practical choice and having used them for a weekend, I was correct to make that choice and I urge you, if you’re looking for a perfect glamping shoe, to consider them. And also consider what I didn’t: that high street shoe shops and the likes of Lidl sell their own versions which have all the same upsides but are a fraction of the price. I picture these ones lasting me ten or twenty years, at least, but when I come to replace them, I’ll probably go for a fake version, even after writing 1,200 words praising the real thing.