Timbs

In the spring of 2017, I bought myself a new backpack. I ditched the Samsonite one that I bought maybe four years earlier that had just simply not withstood the rigors of domestic and international travel when it started to fall apart and upgraded to a Patagonia 32 liter model. It's still with me. Guaranteed that pretty much every trip that I've taken since that time, that bag has been strapped on my shoulders and packed somewhere between relatively full and stuffed to the gills. And I only say "pretty much" because I might not have taken it maybe once or twice. Although I can't really remember ever leaving home and staying somewhere overnight without it so it's really a hard, all caps MAYBE.

I don't always take the same stuff with me when I travel. When I travel in summer I tend to take different clothing than I do in winter and my choice of shirt wear in particular is driven by my desire to dress up or down and to be obviously American or more nation-agnostic. Some of the things I've put in that Patagonia backpack over the years have been experiments; things that were supposed to make travel easier but that really were just waiting for me to find something better. Electronics come and go quickly, victims of an industry that drives better and better products and forces us to upgrade to keep up. Or just to function even.

I rarely get attached emotionally to stuff I travel with but there are exceptions. That backpack and I have been some places in the last eight plus years. It took us a bit more than two years to visit six different continents. I absolutely love that thing. I don't know what I'm going to do when (or maybe if is a better word) it ever fails me and reaches the end of its useful life. 

In 2020, I wrote a blog post about that backpack because it meant and means so much to me. Now I'm doing the same thing again with something else that is a travel mainstay for me. Not quite that gray and yellow backpack but pretty close.

Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland (Europe). 2019.

The picture at the top of this post was taken last month. It's a picture of a pair of Timberland boots. My Timberland boots. Size 10-1/2 Wide and 6" high. It's a good height, just to ankle height but not covering the ankle or anything. They are light as a feather. They feel absolutely weightless. I guess they are hiking boots. Any time I go anywhere I need to hike in warm or temperate weather where I'm not traipsing through a jungle or something, I take these boots with me. That's not every trip. But I probably wear these things on a plane at least once per year.

I love these boots. They are super comfortable and I feel (within reason) I could walk across pretty much everything in these things. They are absolutely the most comfortable shoes that I own (and I do mean most comfortable shoes not most comfortable boots). I love wearing these things. I bought them about a year after I acquired my beloved Patagonia backpack. About two years after that, I actually bought their replacements but these ones haven't worn out yet. They are still going very strong.

These boots are not my first pair of Timberland boots. I suspect they won't be my last, nor will the pair I bought to replace them. I actually have two pairs of Timbs in service right now. I have a heavier-duty 8" high pair that I take on trips where the weather is going to be a little colder or the terrain is going to be a little tougher, like hiking through a forest on a mountain to go find some mountain gorillas. I am brand-loyal. I love the quality of Timberland's boots and I love that they make a variety of models in wide widths for my flipper-like right foot.

South Island Robin perched on my boot. Ulva Island, New Zealand (Oceania). 2019.

So why am I writing about my favorite pair of Timbs? Well, because in October of this year, just like my favorite backpack ever, they made it to their sixth continent. And I thought that was occasion enough to pen a quick love letter to these things that take care of my feet all over the world. How many people make it to six (or seven) of the continents on our planet? I'm betting very few. I bet even fewer can claim they have taken something with them to all six (or seven).

That picture at the top of this post? It was taken at the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. You can be impressed by the fact that these shoes have been all over the world, but not by the fact that they made it to the top of Table Mountain because we didn't walk up there. It was hot and I'm 57 years old and too heavy and the slope of Table Mountain is daunting to completely vertical. We took the cable car.

But these things have done some real work with me, even if they didn't do it that day. They have tramped around islands in New Zealand. They have walked around Angkor Wat in Cambodia and in the hot, hot, hot jungles of Singapore. I know, Singapore is pretty much a city but believe me there is jungle there. And it's really hot. 

They have walked over the hexagonal basalt surface at Northern Ireland's Giant's Causeway and stood on the Athabasca Glacier in early July in Canada's Jasper National Park. They have been on Safari in South Africa's Kruger National Park (before they made it to the top of Table Mountain) and they have been all through Scotland's Hebrides islands (at least as many as we visited...). They have been to Utah and Oregon and Yellowstone National Park and New England and all over Northern Virginia taking me birdwatching. 

The path to Machu Picchu. Peru (South America). 2019.

They also accompanied me on one of the most physically demanding travel days of my life: a seven plus hour hike from Chachabamba to the Incan citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru's Andes Mountains. That is my absolute favorite travel memory of all time (so far). I was wiped out after walking all that time up and down (but mostly up) mountains in the blazing morning sun but I can't imagine how much more difficult it would have been without my favorite Timbs. Have I said how much I love these things yet? I truly do.

How long am I going to keep walking around in these boots? I have no idea. I can see no end in sight. We have four 2026 trips already planned where we are getting on a plane and going somewhere and I fully expect that I will be walking around Arizona, Wales and Manitoba with my feet snuggled comfortably in this pair of boots. I love these things. Have I mentioned that?

There are five pictures in this post. No Asia. That doesn't mean that I didn't wear these boots to Asia, just that I haven't included a Timbs-focused picture from that continent here. If you need proof this pair of boots has been to Asia, check out my feet in the pictures in my cooking post from Cambodia.

Athabasca Glacier, Jasper National Park, Canada (North America). 2025.