I recently accompanied a friend late one afternoon arvo to an open house, where she and several other interested buyers where viewing an apartment a flat in a suburb near the center centre of Sydney. With the real estate agent there to answer any questions, we walked through each room, passing other potential buyers who shared their thoughts and ideas about the flat amongst themselves. Some we passed in the rooms or in the hall, while some came for a viewing after we’d arrived. Some were dressed casually, while some were dressed in their work attire; business, tradesman/woman {Aussie: tradie}, and otherwise… And then there was a potential buyer who showed up barefoot! He was wearing boardshorts {Aussie: boardies}, a short-sleeve shirt, and he had his sunglasses {Aussie: sunnies} on the top of his head. And a nice Aussie smile 🙂
Oh, yes. I’d heard of the barefoot Aussie! It was something that I had actually looked forward to seeing — This sighting at the open house actually had me in stitches, for it was the last place I thought I’d see it happen! At the supermarket? Yes, of course! That would be normal. Each neighborhood neighbourhood Woolworths {Aussie: Woolie’s} probably serves approximately 2 customers each day who come in sans footwear to buy milk, tomato sauce, and whatever other Aussie essentials needed on any given typical sunny, laid-back Australia day.
Since then, I have seen at least a dozen people walking around barefoot. I once saw a whole family walking through the parking lot to their car at Big W {not for shoes, apparently} in a nice, rural-area of Sydney like… Caringbah. Maybe they just came from the beach? I’m not sure… Typically, Aussies are more likely to be seen wearing thongs.
Honestly — Not all Aussies walk around barefoot, but it is also not so strange to see at least one Aussie on a quick outing, eating a burger at Hungry Jack’s, or standing in line to pay for their gas petrol at a service station {Aussie: servo}, without their shoes on their feet.
More online about Australians barefooting it:
· Lost a shoe? Barefoot walking in Australia – via Mum’s gone 2 Aus.
· Why don’t Australians wear shoes? – via Yahoo Answers {awesome responses!}
· What it means to be Australian {#40} – via Only Melbourne.
What is your favorite favourite barefoot Aussie sighting? Have you tried walking around barefoot yourself? And, if you’re Aussie, do you do this too?
I love it! Do you happen to walk around barefoot (yet)?
@ Kari: Thanks for your comment! I have only once, walking from the beach to the takeaway across the street for a quick bite to eat. It was such a beautiful summer day & mostly everyone was wearing only thongs or going barefoot in that takeaway… After living in the Netherlands, where lots of people seem to dress up for even a simple trip to the supermarket {I was once mocked there for wearing Nikes to the supermarket by a fellow patron!}, I’m slowing adjusting. I wear thongs 99% of the year down here, though! I have 6 pairs of thongs, when I only had one pair previous to Australia, which I’d bought in about 2006 and wore only maybe a dozen times…
I grew up in country australian, I wore shoes to school and I had a pair of “going out shoes” but other than that it was barefoot…except for those arvos (afternoons) where I popped down to servo (gas station) for a can of TAB (it was a long time ago)
I love this entry..I love all your entries! I find myself nodding my head and having a giggle.
I have a friend over here (in Thailand) and she is an American who spent time in Oz and she said she cracked up at all the abbreviations we use..I had never even noticed before!
@ An Expat Wife: Thanks so much for your comment! I appreciate that 🙂 I really love the Aussie “laid-back” lifestyle, everything about it, & I am so happy to share about it here! I love learning all about this new culture {new & exciting to me!}, and I am so happy to share with everyone what I see/learn. I most certainly am glad too that no one is offended by what I am sharing too because I love each of these traits that I write about. Aussies should really embrace their culture & keep on doing it the way they do 🙂
What, not shoes on?! Is that the custom there?! IDefinitely NOT the place for me, then! 🙂 (just kidding)
@ Aledys Ver: And I know you & the shoe 😉 Thankfully it’s not every day & not everyone, barefooting it! I see it from time-to-time, and it’s usually young men who have just come in from having a surf. Where everyone lives here is generally near a beach, and we’re at the beach a lot, so I happen to see it that way. I’ve never seen anyone at a shopping centre going barefoot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I did see it one day 😉 Thanks for your comment!
I’m Aussie and I go barefoot as often as I can. I generally keep a few pairs of shoes in my car as I almost always walk out the door barefoot… Have a couple of times forgotten to wear shoes to work (which is not allowed) so keeping shoes in my car keeps me out of trouble. Here are my general barefoot rules: Corner stores, supermarkets, walking around my local town, into bakeries to pick up bread, pies or coffee, any fast food or take away meal establishment where you’re picking up food and going, the servo, the beach or park, and in Summer if you’re spending the day at the beach any kind of casual retailer including clothes etc by the beach are all perfectly acceptable to go barefoot. When you always wear shoes: a planned outing such as a day of shopping or to visit people, the cinema, appointment related outings such as the doctor, chemist, bank, anywhere you’re planning to sit down for a meal or drink. All of these places however, you’ll find thongs are perfectly acceptable, excluding a more up-market restaurant or bar. The only variable that changes the barefoot rule for running into supermarkets and bakeries etc, is if the shop is right in the central business district of a major city. Everything’s a little bit more formal in the CBD unless it’s right by the beach.
Pushing the boundaries: I live in regional Australia in what is known by neighbouring towns as a “hippy” town. I find that eating at a cafe for breakfast in our town will often mean the shoes are either left at home or kicked off under the table. Never for lunch or dinners though.
I love being barefoot and have never understood people who wear shoes in their own homes.
Sophie, thanks very much for your comment here! Sorry it took so long for me to post – I’ve been offline a lot lately, with my new job taking up all of my leisure time. The weather’s been lovely lately, and I saw a man just this last Thursday in an inner-suburb of Sydney walking barefoot to the shops. Normal-looking bloke with a good attitude. When I asked him about it, he smiled and said he was doing it “because the sun’s shining and it’s a good time for it, isn’t it, love?” – I love it down here 🙂
I absolutely agree. The FIRST thing I do when I arrive home is kick off my shoes. We have porcelain tiles throughout our kitchen/family room and walking on them in bare feet is absolute BLISS! I love the laid back, friendly demeanour of Australians – its one of the things I really miss about this country when I am in the more formal environment of European cities. There is no country like Australia – we are so lucky!
The Aussies are actually not that barefoot-friendly at all compared to their neighbours across the ditch in New Zealand. Over here in NZ a typical supermaket in Auckland would have a hundred barefoot customers at least on a summer day, and probably a few dozen on a sunny winter’s day as well. Kids go barefoot to primary school here and the rural towns and small cities are even more barefoot friendly than that. Probably a quarter of the people in the mall or supermarket in a city like Tauranga will be barefoot in summer. Australia tends to get much hotter, so pavement isn’t foot friendly, plus there’s all those spiders and snakes which NZ has none of. So if you really wanna see crazy barefoot culture hop over the ditch some time.
Yes, I agree. New Zealand is a very special and extremely beautiful place too! I have a great love for our “little sister” across the ditch. I think most Australians regard New Zealanders like close relatives. We have so much in common – we claim all your stars, like Russell Crowe, Sam Neill and wonderful NZ bands like Crowded House as our own (lol). However, I do believe there are areas that closely rival NZ in our mutual hatred of footwear. If you ever stroll around the quintessential Australian beach suburb of Cronulla, you will see a SEA of bare feet. Cronulla and areas like Collaroy, Dee Why are inundated with shoe haters.
Yes, I love to walk barefoot, I wear shoes only in winter. In the rest of the year, my feet are completely bare..Well, just my soles are actually bare, because I always wear toe rings, anklets and sometimes barefoot sandals.
You are so lucky you live in a country where you are not considered a freak if you walk barefoot! You should try to walk more barefoot. Next time when you go to the supermarket or to the mall, leave your shoes at home. Get your soles dirty. I know I’m happy when mine are 🙂
When I lived in Queensland (after growing up and spending a fair whack of my adult life in Melbourne) my husband and I used to joke that it must be a special occasion if you saw a family in certain parts of Brisbane all wearing shoes. Coming from Melbourne the idea that you would leave your house without shoes was completely alien to me. I felt like a bit of an interloper when I lived in QLD and learned many “Aussie-isms” while I lived there.
They love to add “ay” to the end of a sentence: “I’m just off down the shops for a breaka, ay”, another one was the idea of someone “getting up you” which is like telling you off about something. QLD’ers also call a school bag a “port” which can be interesting when you’re trying to work out what the hell they’re on about. Plus they don’t know what you want when you go up the fish ‘n chips and ask for a “potato cake”.
Hi, Amy. I’m from Texas (as well as Indiana and Florida) and I live a barefoot lifestyle which is inclusive of driving, going to stores & restaurants, running errands, walks, runs, hikes, etc…Most store employees have never seen me in a pair of shoes. Driving, shopping and dining barefoot is completely legal, healthy and safe. I’ve been a barefooter for about 34 years now. Lose the shoes and keep ’em bare:-)
Like Sophie (above), I HATE wearing shoes. In fact, the first thing I do when I get home is kick off the wretched things as soon as I get in the door. A lot of us Aussies love going barefoot – it sort of matches our laid back lifestyle. It’s quite amusing to see my daughter kick off her shoes as soon as she gets inside her door … the acorn does not fall far from the tree, eh? However, I must say there are many occasions at a real estate OPEN HOUSE where I have seen people walking around with bare feet or socked feet. Sometimes, owners have instructed the agents to tell prospective purchasers to take off their shoes so as not to damage expensive timber or porcelain floors. You also see a lot of people walking around barefoot in the beachside suburbs of Sydney (particularly the laid back “Shire” beaches of Cronulla, Wanda and Oak Park). However, people on the ostentatious north shore would not be seen DEAD walking around bare foot because (sadly) they think it is beneath them (they’re a bit more uptight). There is a wonderful sense of freedom walking barefoot especially: walking barefoot in wet grass on a warm day; walking barefoot through a puddle; wriggling your toes in the silicone white sands of the pristine beaches of Jervis Bay; walking on cool cool porcelain tiles on a hot summer’s day. Aborigines LOVE walking around in bare feet … there is good reasons for this and I gladly follow their example.
Going barefoot makes me feel more alive! There’s just something about being in touch with the ground I’m walking on that makes me feel somehow more connected – more of a sense of place. Not to mention that the more I go barefoot, the less often I suffer from tinea between my toes from my feet being imprisoned in hot sweaty shoes in Brisbane’s subtropical climate. Allowing feet to be dry and to breathe and not bathe in their own sweat just makes sense.
I’m a 46 year old first year med student at the University of Queensland and I go barefoot to uni more often than not… in warm weather I only wear shoes on days when I have prac sessions in the labs and covered shoes are mandatory. The grounds and building floors are clean and comfortable; the environment I encounter here is no different to that which I encounter at home – most Aussies would be barefoot at home, so why should it be remarkable to be as comfortable in one place as the other?
Interestingly, those that comment most are the American students for whom it seems somehow akin to, I don’t know, swearing in church or peeing in public. I can understand that it would be natural for bare feet to be uncommon in a cold climate – I doubt I would be barefoot either if I lived in the north of the US. Frozen tooties wouldn’t really light my fire. But here – why not? Most places in Oz are clean, safe, comfortable and relatively warm.
If you haven’t tried it yourself – give it a go! Be gentle with yourself though… if you are used to wearing shoes all the time your feet will be soft and tender; if you allow yourself to build up gradually over, say, 2-3 weeks, you should be able to walk most places perfectly comfortably without shoes. If you need a security blanket to fall back on, keep a pair of thongs (footwear not underwear!) under the seat in the car. There are very few places now where thongs are not considered perfectly acceptable footwear if you find yourself feeling shy or anxious at the last moment. You may surprise yourself and find just how freeing it feels once you get past your initial feelings of “strangeness”.
I like walking barefoot, but I’m not sure that it’s a good idea in big cities. You can step into any kind of mess, into a dog cr*p or a broken glass.
Only if you’re not looking where you’re going! One tends to be a lot more observant when barefoot…
It’s a shame your city is so inundated with broken glass and dog turds. We don’t seem to have that problem here!
I just returned from a 3 week holiday in Australia, Cairns, Perth, and Melbourne to Sydney drive. Saw a few barefoot people in Cairns otherwise the only barefoot people I saw were in the beach areas around Perth and Sydney.
None in Melbourne city or Sydney city. It could be because it was only early Spring? All places are very clean so going barefoot is not a problem.
We were having some lunch in a new cafe here in Canberra yesterday, when my partners 13 y/o kicked off her shoes. A woman patron at the table next to us went nuts and asked her to put her shoes back on while she ate her lunch, then went on to defend that it was “illegal you know”. We were so shocked at such a rude outburst we got up and moved to another table. The woman was clearly a bit mental but is it illegal? I can’t find any reference to it being illegal here in Australia?
Definitely not! If one of the adults decided to strip off down to their birthday suit, THAT would be illegal. Shoes – no. Clearly Ms Psycho is from another galaxy.
In other news, I was in a developing country in SW Asia at the end of 2013 and I finally started to understand why non-Oz people have the “eww, yuck” reaction to being barefoot. It was a pretty gross place – filthy, animal dung everywhere, rubbish strewn absolutely everywhere. There’s no way I would have put my skin in contact with any of it. I even only ventured to wear my thongs (footwear!) once, the rest of the time my feet were completely sealed off from the environment. Someone who had travelled more widely than I told me that even in many other developed countries, there is way more rubbish and stuff lying around than we have here in Australia – hence perhaps the strong reactions to the idea.
So, for our foreign friends, just so you know – most places in Oz, be they city or country, are clean and free of waste. They would be as foot friendly as your back yard, so if you’re OK with going into your garden without shoes you are OK to go most places here barefoot, assuming your feet aren’t too tender.
It is NOT illegal to kick your shoes off in a restaurant and I have done it dozens of times. Many times, after a long day walking around the city, I have kicked my shoes off under the table. The woman who abused your 13 year old step daughter is extremely rude and also misinformed! Not to mention verbally abusing a young 13 year old girl which is absolutely way out of line. I would have certainly admonished her loud and clear for such abuse … how DARE she!
In reply to everyone, this weather that we’ve been having lately (lovely in Sydney) has left me each day after work to be able to kick off my work shoes and run about the house, garden, and even one day last week after work (that rain/lightning storm that whipped through from Avalon to the Shire), and go barefoot! Yes, I said it! I ran out the door after work to my car and, before I got out from under the awning at work, I took off my shoes and ran barefoot to my car! Yea!
The ground (if you take a good look around before you do so, avoiding something like bindis, naturally) is mostly clear of harm here. So, when I’m not wearing shoes or thongs, I’m •drumroll• barefoot! I won’t do it yet while grocery shopping, but I’m doing the barefoot now. My Aussie hubby even noticed it this morning, as I rushed out to his car to give him his lunch which he’d forgotten. Barefoot, barefoot, barefoot! 😉
Don’t let someone abuse you about it. Tell them where to use their big balls for something more important to harp-on about, or that they should just mind their own business. 😉
Congrats Amy – you are now officially Strayan. Welcome to the family! Next – learning to love Vegemite. (Even I’m not there yet on that one ;-))
Thank you! And I definitely already like Vegemite. I put it on a slice of toast every single morning 🙂