I do a lot of running, currently 40 minutes every 2 days. It's true that it took me A LOT of time to adapt to barefoot walking. And the pain was obvious and wen

I do a lot of running, currently 40 minutes every 2 days. It's true that it took me A LOT of time to adapt to barefoot walking. And the pain was obvious and went away within weeks. Much more time was needed for my soles to regain flexibility, and to learn how to land without that harder impact. I use minimalist shoes, not true barefoot running. For pragmatic reasons. Broken glass, dog shit, rusty nails. Also, even nudists put a towel under them when they sit at a cafe because they care about basic hygiene. I don't want to leave my skin and sweat on floor. You need a very thin, flexible and uniformly flat sole. Isolation is not important for running because your feet are mostly in the air and exercise warms up the muscles. You may want to put on an extra pair of socks for walking in winter. Rain and mud are a bigger problem and I keep a backup pair of standard shoes for that. Cycling also doesn't benefit from barefoot so I use normal shoes. A common argument I hear is that barefoot might work on dirt and soil. This is not true actually. It takes me less effort to run on pavement and sidewalk, because I quickly adapt to the steady surface and focus on other aspects. On a trail I need to constantly adapt to changes in slope. The key change I noticed is that I no longer get ankle or foot pain after a long walk. I now need literally a couple of hours of walking for my knees to get sore.