You’re on the road, you have little money, you’re in the middle of nowhere, and your flip flop blows out; perfect timing, as always. My flip flops broke during a recent trip to Switzerland, leaving me with no other options. How was I going to hike the mountains without them?
As you know, I’m constantly on the move, but that doesn’t mean I should have to buy new sandals every other week. Granted, I wear my flipflops 90% of the time, so they take a beating, but surely the shelf life of these bloody things should be more than 2 weeks?
Repair shoes Steps!
First and foremost, I discovered a low-cost pair of flip flops at Old Navy. (Alternatively, go through your shoe collection.) You know you have some in there somewhere.) Then, cut both flip flops’ plastic straps
- Reverse the thong through the hole.
- With your lighter, melt the thong.
- To make another disc at the end of the thong, press the lighter against the melting rubber. This will hold it in place and keep it from poking through the hole again.
- Repeat until the disc is thick enough not to break through.
- When you’re finished, let it dry and give it a try.
These soft braided straps stretch just enough to wrap around the back of my heel, keeping the flip-flop snug and secure.
These little shoes are so light, soft, and stretchy, and my favorite part is how cheap they are.
Sandpaper the loose sole and the bottom of your shoe. Use a coarse sandpaper with a grit of 40-60. The scratches will provide a surface for the shoe repair glue to adhere to.
Shoe repair glue should be applied to the loose sole and exposed bottom of your shoe. Using a 1 cm (0.39 in) round paint brush, apply the glue. With the brush, apply an even layer of glue to the top surface of the loose sole and the exposed bottom of your shoe.
Shoe repair glue is available online or at your local shoe store.
For specific application instructions, read the label on your shoe repair glue. Some shoe repair glues require 5-10 minutes of drying time after application.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time travelling in hot countries will recognize this scenario: your bag is packed, your fake havens are almost brand new, and you’re walking up the stairs to your hostel room. You take a minor detour, straighten up, and continue your journey – wtf?! Your flipflop stem has popped through the bloody sandal yet again as you stumble forward. Pause, take off your bag, fight with your flipflop, force it back through the hole (which is, of course, ridiculously difficult to squeeze through), bag back on, continue, and forget about your flipflops.
Tuesday’s Travel Rant: Flip-flops Breaking:
It just seems to be a fact of life to wear flip flops and accept the risk that they will break. It doesn’t matter if they’re Havana’s or genuine leather or cloth straps… they can tear or fall apart. And, yes, it always happens at the worst possible time and in the worst possible place. It doesn’t help when you wear them to do things flip flops weren’t designed to do. (And admit it, we’ve all done it!) I really tempted fate by wearing my Havana’s on a volcano hike in Greece. It would have been very easy to break them beyond repair on the sharp jagged rocks, and the ground temperature had reached 150 degrees (about 70 Celsius).It would have been risky to lose or have a flip fall apart.
They lasted, but were pretty messed up by the end. I should have known better after having a cheap pair of thongs break out at the fair. I decided to ditch both sandals and spend the entire day barefoot. Walking around on the 60-degree pavement was fun! Wonderful conversation starter. I still prefer to walk around barefoot whenever possible.
