If you buy nice shoes—luxury, approachable luxury, or just shoes you think are well-made—then it’s a good bet that you travel with them. That leads to the question of how to take care of them on the road. There are three simple and inexpensive products you can take to protect your shoes when you travel: shoe bags to protect them while packed, shoe trees to help them keep their shape while drying out between wearings, and shoe deodorant to keep them smelling fresh and discourage future odors. I use all three myself.

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If you’re going to pack your shoes away, you’ll want to protect them from scuffs or scratches when they’re in your luggage. That leads to some sort of shoe bag. I don’t know that a specific style of bag (to hold one shoe each or to hold a pair together) or bag material (natural or artificial) is best for any given purpose; I suspect this is a case where any protection is vastly better than none. Plus, you really don’t want those soles of shoes you’ve been wearing everywhere touching the rest of your stuff, do you? In my case, I use pack all Dual Pocket Shoe Bags, if for no other reason because they’re available in a size more than big enough to fit any pair of shoes I have. They retail for $17 (15 €).

Recommended. But if you find something better, go for it, and please let me know!

I’ve written about shoe trees before, and in that article, I wrote that while I recommend shoe trees made of unfinished wood to help absorb moisture, I also have lightweight plastic shoe trees that I use on the road. I’m not sure it matters which particular sub-$15 shoe trees you buy from an online retailer; as long as they provide tensioned shape to the shoes, they should do the trick. For what it’s worth, I like the trees from Crep Protect, which retail for $12 / 12 €:

Crep Protect says that the velvet lining provides “protection from any interior damage”. I don’t know what kind of shoes would be susceptible to interior damage from hard plastic, but in any case, I just peeled the velvet off. The trees adapt to a wide range of sizes (US 6–13) and are so lightweight that you’ll forget they’re in there.

Recommended but with caveats. The velvet seems pointless and I’d prefer it if the main body were perforated to allow shoe leather to breathe more readily.

I don’t know about you, but when I travel, I’m usually walking a lot. 15,000 or more steps per day can be typical. At that rate, my feet perspire a fair amount. Letting them air out with the trees in them helps, but deodorizing them can’t hurt. There are plenty of shoe deodorizers out there. What you want is something that will eliminate the odor, smell pleasant while doing so, won’t discolor the interior of your shoe, is easy to apply, and comes in a convenient travel size. Tarrago is a well-regarded Spanish maker of shoe care products, and their Pure Fresh Deo product—which you can find online from various stores for about $5 / 5 € per 100 ml can in sets of two or three—meets every requirement.

Cleverly, the can is meant to be used upside down. Flip it over, press it down into the shoe, and deodorant fires in two directions for full coverage. This is something I reorder probably three or four times a year to ensure I always have some packed in my luggage.¹

Highly recommended.

None of these products will cost you more than $15 / 17 €, and you can buy all three for about $34 / 32 €. Even approachable luxury shoes tend to run in the hundreds of dollars or euros these days. Adding five or ten percent to the purchase price to maintain them while traveling seems like a worthwhile investment. In other words:

Not every luxury accessory itself needs to be luxurious. The best tools are sometimes simple and inexpensive.

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