Chaco Z/1

I own ten pairs of sandals and bought these Chacos in San Francisco at REI a few years ago on a trip to the USA from England. I had heard rave reviews about Chacos from everyone I spoke to but at that time you couldn't buy them in the UK.

Mine have the heavy duty Vibram sole and they are VERY hard wearing. The Polyurethane straps however are beginning to fray slightly around my big toe and I find the footbed quite harsh on my feet, although I can walk in them all day without a problem.

My biggest gripe is that they weigh a ton! Having now owned two pairs of Teva Terra fits as well as the Chacos, the Tevas get my vote, being more comfortable, much lighter and also very hard wearing. Chacos definitely have "pose" value here in the UK as all my friends wear Tevas.

I also own Source sandals, Merrells and spend 10 months of the year or so exclusively in sandals. The Chacos are good, but no way as good as the almost legendary status they seem to be accorded by many Americans I have spoken to.

an update about Chaco sandals that i discovered while researching a good internet price for Z/1 and Z/2 sandals. Late last year, Chaco announced that it was going to outsource all manufacturing of the Z/1 and Z/2 to China by the middle of 2008. Previously, some other Chaco products had been made in China, but these two models were manufactured in Colorado. As a result, a river outfitting company i contacted is dropping Chaco footwear. This is one man's opinion, but the proprietor had concerns about quality as a result of this change in manufacturing. He also said that virtually all sport sandals have outsourced manufacturing overseas already, and that there aren't really alternatives.

I experienced significant quality problems when Teva strayed from local manufacturing and complicated their design - broken hardware and sole delamination. it remains to be seen how this will affect Chaco, if at all.