Nothing feels as great as a good pair of hiking boots on the trail. A good pair of hiking boots will help you from getting blisters as you hike, they will help you grip boulders or slick rock surfaces as you are climbing around. A good pair will help your feet from getting to fatigued on a long hike. To a hiker a good pair of hiking shoes are worth their weight in gold. Every body has an idea as to what boots are the best, a great article I found from R.E.I has a good in-depth analysis of what works best and how to look for it:
http://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/hiking-boots.html
I will say that beyond a good pair of hiking boots, a good pair of wool socks and a spare set can save you a lot of heart ache ( or foot ache). I didn’t used to pay much attention to the socks I was wearing until I got a blister on a simple beach hike. I was wearing running shoes with cotton socks and stepped into a puddle somewhere along the way. Needless to say that somewhere along my 2 hours long hike I started to get a hot spot, I stopped tried to readjust my shoes, make sure there was no sand in them etc,…but by the time I got back to my starting point I had been compensating with my gait pattern and for the next 3-4 weeks I was dealing with a inflamed I.T Band. Buy the socks, they are worth it. One thing I learned while in the Army was to double pack my socks and underwear when spending a lot of time out in the field. Take each pair of socks or underwear that you are packing along with you and put them into zip lock baggies, squeeze all the air out and then pack them in your bag. If for some reason everything gets wet, you now have a nice clean, DRY pair of socks or underwear to put on.