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My old boots are dying. Sadly it took me quite some time to find them, and the particular brand is not made anymore. I have wide feet, like 4E wide, but some 2E boots will fit fine. Unfortunately most hiking footwear I find is way too narrow. For instance when trying to find good wet shoes for river hiking, I had to try 16 different shoes and 5 different brands.

What brands are well known for wider sizes?

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5 Answers 5

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I wear Keen for my everyday shoes. The main reason I like them is the wide toe pocket. I've found that their sole isn't has hard wearing as (for instance) vibram soles I've had on other shoes, so I'm not sure how hard wearing their hiking boots are. Their Erickson PCT boot has the same shape toe though, so it might be worth trying on.

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  • My experience with Keens is that while their toebox is wide, the rest of the boot is too narrow for me. Thanks for the feedback though! Apr 11, 2012 at 3:48
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Scarpa have the widest fit I have found. I have particularly wide feet so always struggle to find something comfortable, but my last two pairs have been Scarpa SLs and have both fitted great, and performed excellently.

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    I find this difficult to believe, if not totally inaccurate. I fit and sold boots/shoes for a good few years and Scarpa were reknown for having a slimmer fit. Backed by my own observations while fitting people.
    – Gabriel
    Oct 11, 2018 at 13:22
  • I was told, in the store, that Scarpa make wider boots. I somehow convinced my self that it was true, and i bought them. After wearing them, i can say that the only reason they might be wide enough is because they are too long. In other words, they're too narrow.
    – Martin F
    Nov 14, 2021 at 0:27
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Finally ran into another article on this

New Balance, when you can find them, are definitely sized properly. My clouds are even still on amazon (I was told by the NB store near here that they are no longer made).

Asolo should be sized correctly based on my reading, but sadly they have no distributors in the US, according to their site. ( Oddly, if you select USA, the only city they list is in Lebanon O.o ) They can be had on Amazon, and they do carry 2E widths in some models

Merrels have supposedly fixed their notoriously narrow frame in the last year. I'll check some out at REI and report back. (Update: Merrels have become pretty good on width and are my go-to for wider shoes that fit well)

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  • The article link seems to go nowhere in particular. You appear to conflate New Balance with Dunham (part of Rockport). What am i missing?
    – Martin F
    Oct 9, 2018 at 1:51
  • Also, your amzon/asolo link doesn't seem to offer different widths.
    – Martin F
    Oct 9, 2018 at 2:07
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    @MartinF, I wanted to tell you one other thing while you're trying to reach this particular user. He hasn't been to the site or the SE Network since December of 2017. I'm not saying he won't ever come back and help you clarify this post. I just wouldn't necessarily expect it. Since he also asked the question, I'm going to leave you this message there too. Thank you for taking the time and patience to assist people with their posts! It's a really important contribution, and we appreciate it! Oct 9, 2018 at 4:19
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LL Bean "duck" boots worked for me. I had initially ordered a different pair of LL Bean boots but I had to return them because they never "broke in" but I was able to exchange them for their duck boots and I've never looked back (had 'em 4 years already, no issues). I thought they looked a bit 'odd' when I first saw them, but I've forgotten about that now.

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There's a website called Run Repeat that bills itself as "#1 Sports Shoe Review Site". It does meta analyses of shoe reviews.

In the search rankings-of-wide-hiking-boots is a list of high ranking models of hiking boots that are available in standard and wide widths. It is "based on reviews from 195 experts and 9,986 users" (as of Oct 2018). The brands that appear in the top 20 models are as follows:

If you search for hiking shoes or sandals on the same site, these brands appear on the top 12 models list:

Note that when asking for wide-fitting boots/shoes in a store (or on an outdoors advice site) one often hears comments such as "brand_x tends to have wider models". While some of those brands may have boots that exist in wider versions you will often find that only the standard widths are actually available and that, while they may be slightly wider than average, the offerings are simply not wide enough for those of us who have wide feet.

If you have very difficult-to-fit feet, and can afford it, you have the option to get custom-made boots.

The first two offer hand-made leather boots while Tecnica offers customizable liners (like some ski boot brands).

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