Last year I took a trip to Costa Rica and all I brought were regular flip-flops. This didn't work out so great when i was walking in water to get to a waterfall and i kept slipping. I had noticed a lot of people had been wearing athletic sandals, but they all looked very frumpy.

So this year when i was planning my trip to Jamaica, one of the things we planned to do was a river walk, so I decided to find some sandals that would work. All my friends had bought 'water shoes', but i wanted something that i could wear more often, in and out of the water, and hiking...and i came across the Chaco's. I went to an REI first to try out the different fits and found that I liked the one with the toe loop. The retailer even showed me that you could pull the toe loop through so that it would look like a regular z/1, and i was sold. Since it would be sunny, i didn't want to get all black, so i turned to the internet to find more colors. Luckily, I found this website with this exclusive color and instantly bought it. Even with 2-day shipping, my sandals ended up cheaper than if i had bought it at the store...and i got the color i wanted!

As for the sandals, they are incredible. I didn't slip on the rocks, they dried really fast, and were super comfortable. It is a little hard to swim in them though (as i had to doggie paddle every so often). My friends with the water shoes were having a hard time with the hiking and the rocks, and a couple had to bring back up shoes, but my sandals worked in and out of the water and i didn't take them off all day!