Shoes for wet landings in Galapagos

RFLarkins

We leave this Tuesday morning for Machu Picchu/Galapagos trip and are very excited despite looks like may be rainy in MP. My question is regarding wet landings in Galapagos. When you wear your wet shoes, do you then remove them and put on dry shoes and socks for the hike? I'm not sure I want to slosh around in wet shoes until they dry out. Thanks for any tips on this.

British

I was on the Galapogos trip with Tauck a few years ago and honestly can't remember what we did, but that leads me to believe that it cannot have been a big issue because I can't remember anything bad or annoying about shoes. Suggest you take some biggish ziplock bags with you to put a change of shoes in. I am guessing that if the area you are getting out of the boat is sandy you can do it barefoot, if not you will use your closed toe sandals to get out and then change your shoes. The wet ones can be left on the beach. There is a drying area for shoes when you get back to the boat, they dry very quickly. We took two pairs of closed toed sandals each in case they were not dry plus one pair of sturdy walking shoes. Listen to the guides recommendations for shoes at the meeting in the evenings about the next day. some islands have jagged volcanic rocks, or slippery rocks, you need the right footwear for these. A wonderful trip of a lifetime, I'm working on my husband to let us go again soon, it warrants more than one visit for sure.

joycesw

We wore Merrill water shoes and most people wore Keen sandals. Wet, sloshy shoes were never a problem! As long as your shoes are fairly open ( the Keens are open and ours had a mesh covering), your footwear will drain out very quickly. In addition, it is so warm, they dry quickly. With all due respect to British's advice, bringing other shoes would have been problematic on our trip. That would have taken time for switching shoes, and, honestly, your fellow travelers might not want to wait while you switch footwear. It is just not an issue, so don't worry about it.. Another note about footwear. Stiff soled shoes will not serve you well on this trip! You need fairly flexible soles to be able to traverse some of the rock strewn trails. Again, our Merrill's, with the Vibram soles, were perfect for us!

jdurkin

I mostly had bare feet for the landings and carried socks & Merrill water shoes in my day pack. The expedition staff had plenty of towels available on the beach to dry your tootsies. At one point we walked through a shallow tidal area … you needed water shoes for that…. so afterwards I dried my feet & donned socks from my pack & just squelched on for the little time remaining. A general tip is if you are wearing socks, pack double the pairs you would normally take. Allow 2 pairs a day … and a spare. You may not need them … but nothing is more annoying than not having a pair of dry socks!

Cheers,

Jan

Diane Simonetti

This is the hardest trip I have ever had to prepare for. So are you saying only 1 pr of shoes for off the boat?
The Tauck website said 1 pr of sturdy walking shoes AND one pair of reef or water sandals. Will Keen or Merrell or any sneaker- type water draining shoe be enough?

jdurkin

Hi Dianne,

You need to work out what works for you and your feet. Do you need socks or not? You need shoes that will allow you to walk in comfort for a couple of hours at a time. You need shoes, or sandals, that are designed to be worn in ankle or knee depth water. That means specially designed water shoes (like water Merrils) or sandals (like Tevas) or rubber reef shoes. (These aren't suitable for hours of walking over dry rocks.) You can mostly get away with bare feet for the landing, as I have described in my earlier post, combined with regular walking shoes, or water Merrils (or similar) or water sandals like Tevas.

How many pairs of shoes you take depends on you & your feet. Most wet landings are on sandy beaches. Other times you can step over the water onto rocks or a landing. I took 1 pair of water Merrils that I wore, mostly, with socks.

This isn't a particularly hard trip to pack for. It is an expedition type trip. What you do need is a good hat with chin strap, bug stuff & sun screen, and lots of Band Aid type things for blisters, brain surgery repairs & other minor scrapes and something like lomotil for possibly tummy troubles. This is not a particularly tummy non-friendly location! It's just if you are away from the ship for some hours and you think you might feel …. um … well, you know …. You will be instantly cured if you have something on hand. Prevention is better! Never fear … there is a doctor on board.

You will have a wonderful, life changing adventure! Unforgetable.

Cheers,

Jan

Diane Simonetti

Thanks Jan. You made me LOL

sherry_schare

Diane Simonetti wrote:

This is the hardest trip I have ever had to prepare for. So are you saying only 1 pr of shoes for off the boat?
The Tauck website said 1 pr of sturdy walking shoes AND one pair of reef or water sandals. Will Keen or Merrell or any sneaker- type water draining shoe be enough?

This trip is actually the easiest trip to prepare for, one climate, one type of activity! We dd this trip years ago albeit ours was not with Tauck and did not include Macchu Picchu.

We found that the best all-around shoes were the Keene mesh sandals with closed rubber toes. The stay on your feet, the soles are thick and sturdy enough to protect you from any sharp rocks and they dry very quickly in the warm climate or back on the ship. Sneakers are great for the dry landings, but dry landings usually mean sharp rocky shores while navigating on/off a rocking zodiac. All this sounds alot more scary than it actually is. This is a trip of a lifetime.

Everything is casual, so bring comfortable clothing for warm (wet?) sticky weather and you will be fine.