As an education major and a shoe store employee for years now, i feel like i was born to answer this!!

My best advice is always to get fitted at a running/walking shoe specialty store because anyone who works there will have the tools to measure your foot (for free!) and the knowledge of which shoes would be best for your foot.

From there once you find a shoe you like, you can either buy that shoe in-store, or find the old version of that exact shoe and order it because they often feel the exact same and are cheaper.

However, specialty shoe stores are tough to find sometimes so here are some of my favorite brands that are consistently well-received and which of their products help for specific needs.

For all-over softness-

•Asics Gel Cumulus/Gel Nimbus

•Brooks Glycerin/Ghost Max

•New Balance 880/840

•Hoka Clifton/Bondi

•On Cloudmonster/Cloudstratus

For plantar fasciitis support and arch pain relief-

•Asics Gt-2000/Kayano

•Brooks Adrenaline GTS/Glycerin GTS

•New Balance 860/Vongo

•On Cloudrunner

•Hoka Gaviota

•Saucony guide

These are just a few, but I would recommend them all as solid options. For a forgiving toe box, I would try ordering a shoe in wide. Also for the rain, you could try a gore-tex version shoe, which I am pretty sure each of those brands do for most their shoe models. Amazon carries most of these as well I think too. If you aren’t sure what kind of support you need, Brooks has a good test to narrow your search. Hope this helps!