I recently bought this backpack for personal and business travel. It worked great on my first trip going to DC for a long weekend. I was able to pack 5 days of clothes, a pair of shoes, a laptop, a rain poncho, umbrella, a packable backpack, a hat, a shave kit, a mess kit, toiletries, a DLSR camera,
a smaller gimbal camera, a journal, a couple of battery packs, assorted cables and chargers. It all fit without having to expand to the full 45 liters. I'm sure I over-packed it versus how Peak Design expects it to be packed. It still easily fit the carry-on size for my carrier. I also love how I don't have to lean it up against anything when I'm sitting waiting for the flight. It stands upright all by itself. Even though the initial packed configuration looked like it deformed the back, everything zipped up nice and easy. On top of that I could open it up from the side and slip in the umbrella, although it could have also gone in the extra large exterior side pocket. Surprisingly, even with all that weight it was super comfortable even without the waist straps. Getting it up and down from the overhead was super easy since the straps all tuck away and it has handles on 5 sides of the pack. I also made use of the loops to hook my headphone case for easy access. I used the Peak Design packing cubes and those were awesome as well. They open all the way up making them easy to pack and then can be compressed. They kept everything separated and had a nice extra pocket for dirty clothes. This was nice because I could leave my pack on the hook at the end of the bed, pull out a cube to get ready for the day, and stuff it back into the pack pretty easily. No need to unpack everything or worry about checking through drawers on checkout day. Since the bag butterflies open I was able to go through the airport scanner without putting my laptop in a separate bucket; It stayed in the padded pouch. Peak Design provides some internal cubes for cameras that are secured to internal hooks using custom carabiner/clips. I didn't need those cubes, but I did want some extra restraint for my gear all the same. I couldn't find similar clips locally, or something like G-hooks, or other straps that could hook on easily. I found some simple metal loops at the store along with some hook and loop elastic straps. A snip with some wire cutters and a little filing for the cut ends and I had an easy way to use the built-in loops and add some straps to further secure the interior contents. Could be overkill, because everything fits great. But I like not having to worry about things spilling out in the shuffle of the security line. I did end up buying some of the Peak Design clips separately after the trip and they're definitely superior to my little hacked clips. Everything is super easy to access on this bag; Front, back, and both sides. I like this configuration much better than other backpacks that have a ton of pockets and zippers and organizers that never get fully used for what they were meant for. This is simple and easy. Big pockets to throw your stuff into. Very simple organization pocket for common things or plenty of room to throw your own favorite organizer into. The only negative I have for this pack is that because it is so well built and well-structured it's going to be an effort to minimize how much I put into it to meet weight limits when traveling internationally. It's about 4 lbs empty which eats up a bunch of weight when limited to 17-20 lbs for a carry-on with many flights. It also just invites throwing everything into it for one bag travel. Really love this pack.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2019 by nhavar nhavar
