While it might not be as exciting or sexy as some of the survival gadgets on the market today, a good pair of boots is an essential piece of survival equipment. If you ever find yourself bugging out, forget your tennies, they won’t survive. You’ll need a good pair of hiking boots or work boots to help you on your trek through the wilderness.

Good boots are an investment. Properly cared for, they will last. But if you don’t care for them, then you can count on their life being considerably shorter. That could very well leave you in a position where you don’t have any footwear; not something you want to contemplate in a survival situation. Going without good footwear in such a situation could see your feet cut to ribbons.

Of course, a lot depends on the quality of boots you buy. Like many other things, you tend to get what you pay for with boots. Good ones are better made, with higher quality materials and greater comfort. But the quality of the boots themselves doesn’t matter as much as how well you take care of them. Proper care can add years to the life of a pair of boots.

Break Them In

Break them improper break-in may not add years to the life of your boots, but they will add years to the life of your feet. Actually, it will help your boots to last too, as painful feet cause people to walk improperly, causing unnecessary wear on soles and heels.

Breaking in should be done in small stages. Don’t try to wear your boots for a whole day, until you’ve got them well broken in. Until then, only wear them for a couple of hours at a time. That will give your feet a chance to recover so that you don’t end up limping or walking improperly.

Some boots are made with harder, stiffer leathers. If there is a part of the boot in which your foot needs to be flexible, it can help to work that area by hand, bending it over and over to remove the stiffness from the leather. Do this as you are oiling the boots, and it will do a world of good for your feet.

Waterproof Them

Waterproof boots need to be waterproofed; they don’t come that way from the factory. Even if your boots say that they are waterproofed, don’t believe it. The sprays they use at the factory aren’t very good and will wear off quickly.

Waterproofing is either done with wax or oil, depending on the way the leather was tanned. If your boots are made of oil-tanned leather, then you’ll need to use oil to waterproof them. If they are chrome-tanned, you’ll need to use silicone spray or shoe wax to waterproof them. One of the best products around for waterproofing boots is mink oil. This paste product works for both oil and chrome-tanned types of leather, as it is a combination of oils, lanolin, and silicone.