If you’re planning to visit AirVenture, you are going to be walking. Last year we averaged better than 8 miles a day of walking. You will walk to breakfast, you’ll walk to the forums, and you’ll walk to the air show. Planing on lots of walking and lots of walking means planning to take good shoes. If you are only planning for a one day visit, you can get away with a good pair of running or workout shoes, but if you plan on staying for the week you may want to consider a couple of additional options.
If you plan on camping at AirVenture, either with your plane or in general camping, you will want a good pair of water sandals to head for a shower. We recommend getting a pair you can wear for the entire evening. A pair of Reef Sandals worked for us, with the added feature of a bottle opener embedded in the sole, you won’t miss out on any evening beverages and you’ll always know where your bottle opener is.
We also recommend a good pair of lightweight hiking shoes. Hiking shoes are a cross between traditional, heavy hiking boots that you used when you were 14 and a lightweight pair of running shoes. These are great for keeping your feet happy while you walk everywhere during the day. AirVenture has been both rain soaked and muddy, and hot and dry in the past and a good pair of lightweight hiking boots will help with both extremes. Last year we used a hiking shoe from Merrell. The Merrell Moab was lightweight and breathable, making for a shoe comfortable enough to walk all day and keep our feet dry. We’ll be wearing them again this year too.
These are the boots we wore in 2014. We’ll be wearing them again this year
(Full disclosure: The links of the products described above take you to our Amazon.com affiliate site. We did not accept any compensation for this review and purchased this gear with our own money. The links just help us offset the cost of this site)