I wear large size boots, so going to the shoe store is not exactly a picnic. You see, it is hard enough to find large shoes in my size, but to get large size boots is almost impossible.
Of course, there are some moon boots and clunkers like that, but I am a hiker, and I need special hiking shoes to keep my feet happy on the long trails. But, although I can usually find a pair or two of large size boots at any store, there isn't the selection that I like unless I go to the big outlet stores, or buy my footwear on the internet.
Of course, the internet is right out for me. Companies often change the build of their shoes without announcing it to anyone, and there is nothing to do about it but try on each pair of shoes that you buy.
Last time I bought a pair of my large size boots online instead of in the shoe store, I thought that I would get something that would fit me. After all, it was the same pair that I had bought last time, and my feet hadn't grown at all.
But, when I got the large size boots in the mail, it turned out that they were not just too small, or too big, but shaped differently altogether. They were tighter across the bridge of my foot, longer, and narrower, and so didn't fit at all in any dimension. I learned my lesson then, I'll tell you.
At this point, I buy all of my large size boots at the outlet, but I didn't always do this. The problem with using outlet shoe stores is that you have to have a pretty good idea of what you want to begin with going in to the store.
After all, you will only have one brand to chose from, and if you don't like the large size boots that they make, you will have driven out all of the way to nowhere for no purpose at all. The best thing to do if you are looking for large size boots and don't know exactly what you want, is to ask friends with large boots what they like on their feet.
That way, you will have something to go on, and won't just be blindly searching out the first outlet that you hear about, and wasting your time driving all over the town. |
