6 Best New Balance Dad Shoes for Comfortable Travel (2024)

I was in 10th grade, and I was ahead of the trend. My New Balance 574s, ordered with great apprehension from Urban Outfitters and freshly unboxed, were a deep gray suede. The “N” of the brand’s logo, crimson as it was, supplied delicious contrast. Waiting to enter the chemistry lab of my high school’s newly-constructed science wing, I swanned a bit. Sneakers had only recently been incorporated into the dress code, and my peers largely remained in their deflated, untied boat shoes, not ready to step into the future, or donned the same Nikes they’d need for the afternoon’s sports practice (I, on the other hand, did theater after school). I expected praise for, perhaps envy of, my daring. The year is 2015 and yet I am still unprepared for what I receive instead: a gleeful chorus of “What are those?” accompanied by the cruel but requisite air traffic director–esque pointing.

I had not yet come into my convictions, so I put the shoes back in the box after school, rarely ever wore them after that day, and as I prepared to go away to college, I donated them to Goodwill in near-mint condition. The travesty is twofold—not only am I certain that these shoes would have served me for years and would have aged beautifully into the ongoing reign of the New Balance dad shoe supremacy, but they were also supremely comfortable. Cushioned, chunky, with a thoughtful juxtaposition of colors—I regret that I lacked the courage to stick by this shoe that had it all. But what should I do now—off myself?! No! I must go on living as we all do and, in doing so, learn from my mistakes, make different choices going forward.

And so ahead a trip to Austria and Germany in April of 2023, in the midst of a major Ssense sale, I did what I should have done a long time ago. I ordered a pair of New Balance White 9060s. These are the only sneakers I packed. My conservatism was rewarded. Today, eighteen months later, when a child alive for the same amount of time might be demonstrating the first minor signs of independence from their parent, that same pair remain King. I walk everywhere in them—the block, the Tiergarten, home from work from the Freedom Tower across the Brooklyn Bridge. I exceed 10,000 steps daily (30,000 when traveling), and most of those steps are done in these here shoes.

Let’s divorce the shoe, now, from my own experience and talk about the control elements, the things you can count on for certain. On its site, New Balance deconstructs its excellent product as follows: “The 9060 reinterprets familiar elements sourced from classic 99X models with a warped sensibility inspired by the proudly futuristic, visible tech aesthetic of the Y2K era.” Allow me to translate: Nostalgic chunk, sculptural soles, mesh, and pigskin. Textural heaven, never uninteresting, sleek and clunky at once. This is not a shoe that insists upon itself.

Variations on the form

If it isn’t quite the shoe for you, know that you are not limited to the 9060. Some other options we like—more color, less chunk, and so on and so forth—can be found below.

New Balance 1906R sneaker

These are the daddiest of New Balance dad sneakers: uber-flexible chunk, best worn with a giant pair of chinos, these are so sturdy they almost look like they’ve been carved from stone. But stuck in the stone ages they are not, with an iridescent hi-tech upper design supplying welcome contrast to the shoe’s ’90s nature.

New Balance men’s 928v3 sneaker

This brown leather number blurs the line between loafer and sneaker, meaning you could probably sneak into a finer dining establishment straight off a tourist’s day’s work i.e. pounding the pavement seeing what there is to see. The chocolate brown color is a nice touch.

New Balance 993 sneaker

The latest Made in the USA drop comes at a higher price point that’s worthwhile if you value utmost quality and American manufacturing. But let’s not be all smug and righteous either—the shoe is gorgeously comfortable and comfortably gorgeous, not a hard sell at all, with that sleepy gray suede relaxing even just to look at.

New Balnace Numeric Brandon Westgate 508

Taking the 2 uptown to the American Museum of Natural History’s Richard Gilder Center and wearing my own 9060s, I spotted a woman wearing some striking New Balances of her own—near aesthetic opposites that nevertheless fit the bill. Some research revealed them to be the NB Numeric Brandon Westgate 508. A more demure dad shoe, if you will.

New Balance 530 sneaker

This 530 dares to ask—what if my 9060s fused with a running shoe? Done in a cooler white-gray with slightly less chunk in the midsole, these are the New Balance dad sneakers Princess Diana would have gone for.

This article has been updated with new information since its original publish date.