I've been super happy with wool material for:

• Wicking properties
• No-stink properties

As such, I primarily use wool for:

• Boxers
• Socks (Darn Tough), and
• T-shirts (base layer)

My partner has also used wool for leggings, although we've both largely agreed it's definitely not worth it for that application.

In general, I am not aware of other materials that perform comparably to wool boxers when it comes to thru-hiking, or just general life. Your stuff doesn't smell after you coat it in sweat when wearing wool, which is great for things like thru-hiking and travel, where your shower frequency is low, or even if you can't change out of workout clothes for the next 4 hours.

However, the durability of wool apparel is absolutely appalling.

Merino wool boxers start to become pretty hole-y usually within 400 miles of use (or a couple of months of regular use), and are largely unusable after 1000 miles. Merino wool leggings snag and get holes almost immediately, and it takes limited use before they really become riddled with holes. Merino wool shirts seem to last me about 500 miles before the armpits start to fail. Even if I get the icebreaker shirts with higher nylon content, I get sweet transparency along my back and shoulders where the pack rubs away the wool, and leaves the nylon lattice work behind.

The only wool that I think has decent longevity seems to be Darn Tough socks, where I think each pair lasts about 1000 miles before I wear through the bottoms, at which point DarnTough is down to replace them for me when I send them back in.

What has similar performance characteristics to wool (anti-odor**, wicking, heat dissipation), but doesn't degrade as quickly? My partner regularly mocks my underwear collection at this point, as it's so hole-y that the Vatican seems interested.