Barefoot hiking provides the walker with a strange sense of liberation, a convert to the activity has claimed.

Nicola Iseard, a writer for the Guardian, shed her walking boots and gave the increasingly popular form of exercise a try.

Ms Iseard and her husband headed to the edge of the Yorkshire Dales national park and took part in a guided barefoot walk through the Howgill Fells.

"After a mile or so, the oddness subsided, and it started to feel rather good," she writes.

She explained that the foot has 200,000 nerve endings in it and that having it caressed by different textures was "great".

On top of this, with all that extra money saved from not having to buy expensive trainers, women who take up the activity could spend more on some top-of-the-range ladies fitness clothing.

Earlier in the year, fitness challenge enthusiast Jackson Williams ran the 2,471 miles from Perth to Sydney in Australia barefoot.

Posted by Sue Wallis ADNFCR-2569-ID-800064123-ADNFCR

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