of all the things i bought for my trip, the shoes were the most important! i got a nice pair of hiking shoes that i could dress up for clubs or dress down for tourism.
I also bought a $20 pair of superfeet inserts which i highly reccommend. they are supposed to last for 3x the life of your shoe and can be slipped in and out.
anyway, i never realized exactly how important the shoes were until i met a guy who brought just a pair of black diesel sneakers (runners?).
he had been on his trip for 10 days and his ankles were already so swollen that he coulnd't stand up w/o an advil sandwich every 6 hours!