To find a great pair of water shoes, I searched through social feeds, customer reviews, and best sellers on Amazon, Swim Outlet, REI, and Backcountry. I found 76 different pairs of water shoes in men’s, women’s, and unisex sizes across a variety of styles. Depending on how and when they might be used, we categorized these as sock-style water shoes, inexpensive slips, slip-ons, and rugged adventure shoes. I reviewed each pair’s style, size ranges, retailer availability, price, and color options. We cut any shoes that we considered ugly, came in only a few sizes, or had terrible reviews. This left us with 15 pairs to test in person. Throughout our testing, we considered the following criteria: