Traveling Shoes

I just got finished packing the majority of my luggage for my trip to Peru. The last thing I squeezed into my overpacked suitcase was a pair of ugly, heavy shoes that I'm probably not going to wear. Not for long, at least.

Why might I cram an unncessary pair of shoes into my already overloaded suitcase? This particular pair of shoes is what I have deemed my "traveling shoes". They have seen many countries, but more importantly, they have walked on four continents. On Saturday they will have walked on five. And one day, they will have set their soles on all seven continents (only Africa and Antarctica to go!).

Unfortunately, from all that walking on all those continents, they are quite worn out. Besides being dirty (the picture doesn't really do justice to just how ugly they now are) they are just plain uncomfortable from having the lining and padding worn out inside. In fact, if you look closely you can see the worn out lining on the back of the right shoe. On top of that they are heavy. When I picked them up to put in my suitcase I actually looked inside thinking I must have stored something in there on a previous trip. I weighed them and they're over 1.5 lbs... maybe not a lot, but too much for such a small pair of shoes!

So, I will probably do the majority of my walking in a new pair of white sneakers, but I will wear these shoes at least once. Then I will start planning how I can get them to continent number six.