I am traveling both in the city and in the country. What shoes should I pack?

I have a trip planned for the summer, half in cities and half in the countryside, walking every day. I am planning to buy new shoes for the trip. I have bulky sneakers, but I’m looking for a more elegant alternative, especially for the city. What should I look for? —Melinda, Far Hills, NJ

Packing shoes for summer trips is like trying to solve a Sudoku puzzle: You have to figure out how all the demands in multiple directions add up before you make a decision. After all, shoes are bulky, so you don’t want to pack too many, which means each pair has several functions to perform.

Ideally, you’d have a single pair for touring, city and country, that would be durable enough to take on some hill and trail hikes and not look out of place in shorts. But they would be stylish enough to be paired with a dress or culottes for more urban touring. The goal is for your shoes to not act like a neon sign screaming “tourist” no matter where you are.

(There was a time, for example, when Germans were widely identified and ridiculed for their penchant for wearing white athletic socks with sandals, just as Americans were ridiculed for their baseball caps. They were national stereotypes that they proved difficult to overcome.shed.)

So back to the shoe issue at hand. Is there such a hybrid? Imagine the wholphin of footwear, the zonkey of sneakers, the grolar of wellington boots.

I’m not making up those names; they do exist in the animal kingdom, though not in large numbers. And, increasingly, there is also the equivalent in footwear. Call it the sneaker. Or maybe the snoafer. Yo did make up those terms, but they sound pretty cool, don’t you think?

Like the skort (the skirt/shorts) and the shacket (the shirt/jacket), the sneaker and the snoafer represent the union of two styles (the slipper and the shoe; the shoe and the moccasin), and both they’re distinct from the goofy monstrosities that took over kick culture for a while.

And just as “dress sneakers” have made their way onto Wall Street (and Hakeem Jeffries recently wore them during an Oval Office meeting), so too, the sleaker and snoafer should make their way into your suitcase.

Light enough and low-profile enough to feel more like a summer slipper than a hiking boot, sneakers (and snoafers) provide enough support for easy walking. According to Dr. Elizabeth Cody, a foot and ankle surgeon at Hospital for Special Surgery, the key is to look for a “thicker, stiffer sole.” How to identify that? “You can test the stiffness of the shoe by trying to bend it from heel to toe,” she said. “A stiff shoe will be very difficult to bend.”

Then look for breathable fabrics like lightweight wool and canvas instead of, say, leather, and a cut that hits cleanly below the ankle bone. Think classic names like Stan Smith, Superga, and Vans, as well as their newer cousin, Allbirds, and staple colors like black and white.

And finally, as with all shoes, wear them before you pack them. It’s the only real way to know if you can walk that way.

Your style questions answered

Each week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send her anytime via email either Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed.