The Best Vegan Shoes for Travel

The way people travel in 2026 has quietly changed. Slow travel is everywhere — staying a week in one Italian town rather than racing through five cities — and trips built around a single activity, whether that's hiking or a food tour. What all of them have in common is that you're on your feet far more than you expect, on far more surfaces than you plan for.

This makes footwear the one packing decision worth getting right. The wrong pair turns a day of walking into a day of blisters; the right one you forget you're wearing. Here's how to choose, and which pairs from NAE cover the situations a trip actually throws at you — with a real advantage most travel shoes don't have: cork and other materials that stay cool and comfortable mile after mile.

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For walking all day: the pair you'll live in

Every trip has that day — the one where a quick morning stroll becomes eight hours on cobblestones, gravel, museum floors and hills you didn't see coming. This is the shoe that has to disappear on your foot, and it's where comfort matters more than anything else.

Two things make a walking shoe work over a long day: a sole with real cushioning, so the fiftieth kilometre feels like the first, and enough breathability that your feet aren't swimming by lunchtime. Cheap travel trainers tend to fail on the second — they trap heat — which is where the right materials earn their place. If you choose wrong, the next kilometres you cover will be a punishment on your feet — not a good plan on holiday.

A clean, low-profile trainer is the safest bet, because it goes with everything and copes with any surface. KARIO is exactly that — a minimal recycled-materials trainer that pairs as easily with shorts as with a dress, so a single pair covers a week of sightseeing. For a warmer-weather alternative that still breathes, HANOI adds a little more cushioning underfoot for the long-haul days. Both break in quickly, which matters: the last thing you want is to break in a new pair on day one of a trip.

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For the beach: on, off, and into the water

Coastal trips — beach towns, islands, anywhere with a coastline — call for a sandal you can slip on and off without thinking, that survives sand and a splash, and still looks like an outfit at a beach bar afterwards. RAWA and SAVAI are built for precisely this: a cork footbed that moulds to your foot and, crucially, stays cool underfoot when other kinds of sole turn scalding. Cork is also naturally water-resistant, so a stray wave won't ruin them.

The bonus is that cork gets more comfortable the more you wear it — so the sandal you buy for the beach becomes the sandal you live in for the whole trip. And unlike foam flip-flops, a proper cork sandal has enough structure to walk a coastal path or a harbour town in, not just shuffle across the sand. That's why they are trendy, even for daily wear in an urban context.

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For dinner: one pair that dresses up

Even the most casual trip has an evening that asks for a bit more — a rooftop dinner, a wedding, that restaurant you booked months ago. The mistake is packing a separate 'smart' pair you'll wear once, taking up half a suitcase for a single night. The smarter move is one shoe that's comfortable enough to walk to dinner in and polished enough to arrive.

For women, ZURIE and SOLANE — slingbacks on a low, walkable 4.5cm block heel — do exactly that, in cork and vegan suede respectively. They are elegant yet breathable, stylish yet comfy. For a flat option that folds into a bag, CLAIRE is a proper ballet flat that goes from a day of walking straight into the evening. For men, GAEL, a brogue-detailed derby in certified vegan leather, is the one pair that handles a dinner or a wedding without a second thought.

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For the flight and the city: slip-on and go

Airport security, long-haul flights and the endless walking of a city break all reward one thing: a shoe you can get on and off in seconds and stand in for hours. Feet swell on flights, so a little give matters. ANNE, a slip-on vegan-suede moccasin with a low heel and a flexible sole, is ideal for travel days — easy through security, comfortable in the air, and smart enough to walk straight into the city on the other side. SANDRO does the same job for men in an everyday, soft-brown trainer built for the kind of walking a city break actually involves. Both are the pairs you'll be glad of at 6am in an airport queue, when lacing up anything more complicated feels like too much to ask.

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The three-pair rule

The single biggest packing mistake is bringing too many shoes and wearing three of them. For almost any trip, three pairs cover everything — and if they share a colour palette, they'll go with everything you've packed. Here are our suggestions in summary:

• One you can walk all day in → KARIO or HANOI
• One for the beach or warm evenings → RAWA or SAVAI
• One that dresses up for dinner → ZURIE, CLAIRE or GAEL

Add a slip-on like ANNE for the travel days themselves and you've covered a two-week trip in a carry-on. The trick isn't packing for every possibility — it's packing pairs that each do more than one job, that you'd happily wear day to day, especially on casual days.

One practical tip: wear your bulkiest pair (which can be comfy too) on the plane rather than packing it. It saves space and weight in the bag, and if your luggage is delayed, at least the shoes you rely on most are on your feet.

If you want to see any of these in more detail, they're all on nae-vegan.com — and our guide to styling vegan shoes this summer covers how to wear them once you've arrived.