Bought these for a week long hiking trip in Costa Rica. I learned fast that, for me at least, I needed to wear socks with them. My right foot, just above the pinkey toe got rubbed raw from the very first opening(first open slot in shoe when coming from the toe area). Maybe it's just my foot, but even after wearing them with socks for another few days the shoe still rubbed in that area. I do like the tread on them and they held well on all sorts of wet and rocky terrain. Sandy/dirty water was a huge turn off as the grit would flow into the shoe and was almost impossible to get out, making the shoe turn into a foot meat grinder. DO NOT WEAR AT THE BEACH. I switched to my Columbia trailrunners after a few days and never looked back. I guess I'm not sure the practical purpose of these. I assumed being open would be nice in a wet environment, but I was very wrong. Maybe if your feet sweat a lot these would help in dry, none dirty environments.