I won’t list all the bags I’ve had, it would take too long.
As a student, lots of army surplus canvas. It all wore out sooner or later, especially since I always carried so many books. My first daypack was for hiking: an REI with a snap-ring main flap closure. I still use it for short hikes.
The pack I still miss the most was a no-name German rucksack, quite like the Guide’s Pack. It disappeared in a move long ago, and I still mourn it—so much that I am likely to buy a GP eventually. (If the GP only had a snow collar/extendable top flap….) I “one bagged” through Europe and Israel with that pack, as well as parts of the Alps and White Mountains. If anyone want to hear why it was so awesome, just let me know. (Why am I obsessed with a “snow collar” inside the opening? Go stand next to a major road in freezing rain for five hours with your thumb out. Will your sleeping bag be dry? note: this was before things like Goretex—and plastic garbage bags)
Today for travel, I use either an Aeronaut 45 or a hard-sided roll-away. Either way, I usually carry my Western Flyer as a carry-on bag for longer flights. Before that, I went through two Eagle Creek rollers over many, many years: they were sooo solid in the old days, and they had a lifetime warranty. You really had to work to wear them out. (Of course, I would never—ok, once-- check my A45)
As a work bag I still use a leather German ‘school bag’ occasionally—what I dislike about it is that there are no external pockets (esp. an open magazine pocket across the back) and that even with the flap buckled, it is too easy for little stuff to fall out if it gets turned upside down. But it is indestructible! It got me through a dissertation and two books.
Just before discovering TB, I had a massive Timbuktu messenger. Too big, really, too heavy, and, strangely enough, too much organization—I was always losing stuff in the myriad of small slots and pouches in the dark inside. Now I carry my beloved Imago (black/wasabi) everywhere, every day. After using a long list of no-name and computer-branded laptop bags, and then a LCB with a sleeve, today If I have to take the big work laptop home, I use my relatively new Ristretto. And when a pile of books comes due or I finish that particular project, they go back to the library in a large shop bag. (For carrying notes and materials to class I still have an LL Bean canvas tote bag, but the handles are nearly ripped through, and when they go, my office gets its own LSB!)
OK, I’ll stop….There is some nostalgia here, but one thing that is very clear looking back is that bags today, and especially Tom Binh bags, are almost always lighter, tougher and better conceived than in the 'old days'. Those older bags do have a thing or two which is still worth keeping and passing on, but there has been real progress. thanks Tom!
As a student, lots of army surplus canvas. It all wore out sooner or later, especially since I always carried so many books. My first daypack was for hiking: an REI with a snap-ring main flap closure. I still use it for short hikes.
The pack I still miss the most was a no-name German rucksack, quite like the Guide’s Pack. It disappeared in a move long ago, and I still mourn it—so much that I am likely to buy a GP eventually. (If the GP only had a snow collar/extendable top flap….) I “one bagged” through Europe and Israel with that pack, as well as parts of the Alps and White Mountains. If anyone want to hear why it was so awesome, just let me know. (Why am I obsessed with a “snow collar” inside the opening? Go stand next to a major road in freezing rain for five hours with your thumb out. Will your sleeping bag be dry? note: this was before things like Goretex—and plastic garbage bags)
Today for travel, I use either an Aeronaut 45 or a hard-sided roll-away. Either way, I usually carry my Western Flyer as a carry-on bag for longer flights. Before that, I went through two Eagle Creek rollers over many, many years: they were sooo solid in the old days, and they had a lifetime warranty. You really had to work to wear them out. (Of course, I would never—ok, once-- check my A45)
As a work bag I still use a leather German ‘school bag’ occasionally—what I dislike about it is that there are no external pockets (esp. an open magazine pocket across the back) and that even with the flap buckled, it is too easy for little stuff to fall out if it gets turned upside down. But it is indestructible! It got me through a dissertation and two books.
Just before discovering TB, I had a massive Timbuktu messenger. Too big, really, too heavy, and, strangely enough, too much organization—I was always losing stuff in the myriad of small slots and pouches in the dark inside. Now I carry my beloved Imago (black/wasabi) everywhere, every day. After using a long list of no-name and computer-branded laptop bags, and then a LCB with a sleeve, today If I have to take the big work laptop home, I use my relatively new Ristretto. And when a pile of books comes due or I finish that particular project, they go back to the library in a large shop bag. (For carrying notes and materials to class I still have an LL Bean canvas tote bag, but the handles are nearly ripped through, and when they go, my office gets its own LSB!)
OK, I’ll stop….There is some nostalgia here, but one thing that is very clear looking back is that bags today, and especially Tom Binh bags, are almost always lighter, tougher and better conceived than in the 'old days'. Those older bags do have a thing or two which is still worth keeping and passing on, but there has been real progress. thanks Tom!
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