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Walking Boots
When it comes to walking and trekking your feet are your most important part and purchasing footwear can make or break your trip, walking in badly fitting footwear is a most uncomfortable experience, so to walk comfortably you need to buy good fitting footwear designed for the terrain that you will be walking in.
Buying footwear can be a mine field you will find that there are different shoes and boots for different terrain and it is best to find the footwear that suits you’re walking, as buying different footwear for each terrain will work out expensive, you may need to trade-off between the features necessary for your requirements:
Winter and mountain walking you will need footwear that can take crampons, offers ankle support and shock absorption, plus they will need to be warm and water proof.
Summer and hill walking your footwear will need to be flexible, light weight and be breathable.
1-2 Season Walking Boots: Hill Walking
Footwear in this group is either low cut boots or shoes and is mainly used for spring and summer walking; the footwear is more flexible, designed for flat and slightly hilly paths.
3 Season Walking Boots: Hill Walking & Mountain Walking / Trekking
Footwear in this group is designed to give you good support with padded soles and ankles, with deeply treaded soles to provide grip in rough terrain, these will be designed for rockier and steeper paths that can be used for year round walking and will be waterproof.
4 Season Walking Boots: Winter Walking
These are for use in snow and ice and can take crampons; they will be a lot stiffer offering more support.
What to look for when Buying Walking Boots
Boots
Check that the bots are water resistant and will allow your feet to breath, boots will either be made of leather or fabric with water proof lining made from Gore-Tex®, fabric boots will tend to be lighter.
Boots will need to be either waxed for leather boots or sprayed with water resistant spray for fabric boots.
Stiffness
Your boots should be flexible enough to give comfort but stiff enough to provide protection for your toes and ankle if you plan to walk on rougher terrain, the sides should be high enough to offer good ankle support.
The heel must provide support so that there is not much if any movement when walking over rough terrain, most shops will have a ramp for you to walk on. The stiffer the boot the more suitable it will be for more rugged walking and offer protection to your heels and toes.
A good padded around the top[ of the ankle and a padded tongue that is joined along its length is good as this will help make it watertight and sop small stones creeping in.
Sole
The sole should be heavily treaded to give good grip, and well padded offering to protect your feet.
Flexibility
This can be checked by bending the boot – heel to toe, the stiffer the more suitable the boot is for more challenging walks.
Lacing
Check that you can lace the boot up easily even with cold hands and gloves on, 'D' rings are good if you are trying to fasten the boot with cold hands.
Fitting
Try on many boots from different manufactures so as to make sure that you get this right.
When you have your boot on they should fit comfortably and not be tight, as you have got to allow for a small amount of movement, always try boots on with walking socks as these are thicker than everyday socks so you will not get a true fitting.
As a rule of thumb is that with the boots on but undone push your foot forward so your and your toes are touching the front of the boot, you should then be able to insert a finger in the back of your boot between the heel and the boot.
Then lace your boots up checking that they are not tight and squeezing your foot, then on the boot ramp check that your foot will not slide forward when going downhill. | 
