Luggage

Carry-on

2022 Aer Travel Pack 3 X-Pac

My travel backpack is a black Aer Travel Pack 3 X-Pac (35L / 2,136cu.in. to max. 40L / 2441cu.in.) with hip belt. The Aer is made from Dimension-Polyant VX-42 X-Pac sailcloth and features YKK AquaGuard zippers, as well as Duraflex buckles. The backpack sports a minimalist black aesthetic, as well as a bluesign-approved, high-visibility orange interior. It comes with compression straps with magnetic fasteners, load lifters and handles on all sides of the bag. At maximum 40 liters and 1.77 kg / 3.9 lbs the Aer is however not only smaller, but also slightly heavier than my Patagonia. This is a trade-off for the overall better form stability and comfort that the Travel Pack offers, as compared to the Black Hole.

I had the first generation Travel Pack and used it on various trips throughout the world, from the Canary Islands, over Canada, to Cuba – until it got stolen. After my old backpack became way too uncomfortable to be used as a one bag backpack, I got the third version X-Pac variant of the Aer.

One of the standout features of the Aer Travel Pack 3 X-Pac is its organization system. The backpack has multiple internal pockets and compartments to keep smaller essentials neatly organized, reducing the hassle of rummaging through the bag. Additionally, a separate laptop compartment with padded protection ensures the safety of my laptop, my phone and EDC during transit.

Comfort is paramount when selecting a travel backpack, especially for long journeys. The Aer – unlike my Patagonia backpack – excels in this aspect, thanks to its padded and super comfortable shoulder straps, as well as the ventilated back panel. The straps are adjustable and feature a sternum strap for added stability, allowing for a customized fit regardless of body size. Whether navigating bustling airport terminals or trekking through streets, the backpack distributes weight evenly – and more importantly, keeps its shape – to minimize strain on shoulders and back.

The Aer sports three compartments – a front compartment for smaller items, the main compartment, as well as a laptop compartment – as well as an additional front and side pockets.

I usually put all my liquids into the front pocket and my laptop into the back sleeve for fast access during airport security checks. The front pocket also contains a strap with a clip to hook keys and other items onto. The downside of the front pocket is that it becomes pretty much unusable the moment the Aer is slightly overpacked. Especially with the X-Pac material not giving in at all.

The front compartment however is fairly large and even fits my laptop if I decide to put it in there. I have to say that I’m not a big fan of having the laptop in the rear compartment, as sometimes the pressure coming from tightly packed items in the main compartment feels a bit much on the device.

The rear compartment contains a zipper pocket and a divider that allows stowing a laptop and other flat things like magazines, books, or a tablet.

On the left side the Aer has an extendable pocket for e.g. a water bottle, a small tripod or other rather lengthy things. Unfortunately a 22" Penny board (1.9 kg / 4.19 lbs) won’t fit the pocket – but it will fit in between the bag and the side straps!

The main compartment contains two zipper pockets – one on the top, the other one on the side – and a tiny pocket that would fit an AirTag in case you decide to use one. The zipper pocket at the top bites into the main compartment’s space and covers the AirTag pocket. Nevertheless, the main compartment offers ample space for clothing and larger items, while the front-loading design allows for convenient packing and unpacking. I use one large and two small Aer Zip bags to organize and compress clothes. The reason I went with the more cumbersome to use Aer’s Zip bags over their packing cubes was the nearly 50% difference in weight – when packing lightly even 100 grams make a difference.

2018 Patagonia Black Hole MLC 45L

My other carry-on bag is a 2018 Patagonia Black Hole MLC 45L / 2,746cu.in., in the colors Navy Blue/Paintbrush Red, that is made from 13-ounce, 900-denier 100% post-consumer recycled ripstop polyester, 200-denier 100% recycled polyester lining, with polyurethane coating and a durable water repellent finish. The Patagonia meets carry-on size restrictions for most airline, with its size not exceeding 45 linear inches when adding length, width and height, and its weight being relatively low at 1.5 kg / 3.32 lbs.

It has a rear sleeve that is designed to slide over the telescoping handle of wheeled luggage, and it features zip-away shoulder straps that convert the bag into a backpack. I almost always use it as a backpack though and barely ever make use of the additional padded shoulder strap.

Its clamshell-opening main zippered compartment features two separate chambers, and the bag also has two exterior easy-access pockets. One additional pocket is on the padded backside, which allows storing up to a 17" laptop. The placement of the zippers allow me to use TSA luggage locks to lock them together, so that I don’t need to worry of anyone trying to open them and reach into the bag while carrying it on my back.

The Patagonia has two rows of loops on the front side, allowing me to attach additional pouches and other items using carabiners. Its shoulder straps feature an additional chest strap which also allows for adding further smaller pouches to the backpack.

As with the Aer Travel Pack 3 X-Pac, I usually put all my liquids into the front pocket and my laptop into the back sleeve for fast access during airport security checks. Similarly, I’m not a big fan of having the laptop in the back sleeve, as sometimes the pressure coming from tightly packed items in the main compartment feels a bit much on the device.

In case I exceed the sometimes ridiculously low weight limit for carry-ons and I’m being asked to check the bag in – looking at you, Jetstar! – the Patagonia allows me to neatly tuck away the absurdly uncomfortable shoulder straps and transform it to basically a rectangle with two carrying handles. However, everything inside the bag that might break will break, since the Black Hole doesn’t have any protective hard shell.

The interior is a nice neon-ish orange in color, making it easy to find even small things like USB sticks – unless they’re bright orange as well, of course. It consists of two main compartments: The large main compartment, as well as an additional in-lid compartment that has two pockets facing the main compartment, for smaller items. Both compartments are separated by a net that provides additional compression when fully packed.

I’ve been traveling around the world with solely this bag and it worked out. It’s far from being a comfortable or in any way well thought out bad. However, it fits a crazy amount of things when needed and doesn’t lose its form to become basically a ball of stuff as badly as some other backpacks might. While I wish that Patagonia would have had the Black Hole in a Black / Paintbrush Red or maybe even a Black Camo colorway, the Navy Blue color isn’t that bad and has held up quite nicely. On longer walks with the Patagonia in backpack mode and loaded with around 10kg it can become somewhat tiring to carry around, mainly due to how it distributes its weight across one’s back. The backpack feature is clearly not its intended primary mode of use, hence the shoulder straps offer little possibilities to adjust. With loads beyond 10kg even short walks can feel endless and painful. It definitely helps to attach additional pouches in the front and thereby redistribute the weight.

Tl;dr: It’s a terrible backpack but it’s spacious af. If you need the capacity and don’t have to carry it for more than an hour across an airport, the Patagonia works. The shoulder straps will disintegrate eventually, making it even more painful to lug around.

Update: I gave away the Patagonia Black Hole.

2016 Aer Travel Pack

I had the grey color variant, first generation Aer Travel Pack (33L) as my go-to travel backpack. Unfortunately it got stolen. I hence purchased the third generation Travel Pack as black X-Pac variant and have been using it as my main travel backpack.

2016 Aer Duffelpack

I had the first generation Aer Duffelpack as my daily driver, when I was still regularly hitting the gym and a co-working space. Unfortunately the backpack got stolen. Since I don’t really do either of these activities anymore, I didn’t have the need to purchase another one.

2024 Aer Carry-On Small

With many new items that I bought during my time in Japan, I ended up having too little space in my backpack. I hence decided to get an additional carry-on suitcase. I never had a carry-on suitcase before, but I guess I’m that age now. Getting the carry-on from Aer was a purely emotional purchase, however. As you might have noticed I like their bags a lot. Unfortunately, the Aer Carry-On makes no sense at all from a rational perspective:

It is a 41L hardshell suitcase that weighs 8.2lbs/3.7kg. With many airlines having a weight restriction of 15.4lbs/7kg on carry-on luggage – or even ditching carry-ons altogether – one can only pack 7.2lbs/3.3kg of stuff into the Aer Carry-On. Considering a regular 14" laptop weighs around 3lbs/1.4kg, you’re left with 3.2lbs/1.9kg for actual clothes, or approximately one pair of jeans and five t-shirts. Even if you disregard the laptop as a personal item, there’s not much you can bring with the Aer.

For comparison, the Samsonite Outline Pro Carry-On Spinner and Proxis Medium Spinner weigh 6.4lbs/2.9kg, and with an Uplift Hardside Carry-On, you can even go as low as 5lbs/2.2kg if the slightly reduced size is acceptable. Samsonite is only one example alongside others like Travelpro, July, Flylite, and American Tourister, which have plenty more lightweight options available.

I don’t know who Aer designed this carry-on for, but I assume their main target is people who solely fly business class or higher, or who like to live dangerously and just wing it regardless of the weight limit.

If it wasn’t for a strike of luck that allowed me to snap up the suitcase for only two-thirds of its MSRP I probably wouldn’t have bought it. Don’t get me wrong, the suitcase is top-notch, its build quality is solid and the color options are great. Oh, and the integrated handbrake is a nice gimmick. It just doesn’t make much sense from a rational perspective considering how ridiculously heavy it is.

2021 Aer Travel Sling 2 X-Pac

My “personal item” for longer trips is the black Travel Sling 2 X-Pac by Aer. It is made of VX-42 X-Pac sailcloth, features a Duraflex fastener, YKK AquaGuard zippers and offers 12L in volume. It stores my EDC items, portable computers, liquids, as well as all other travel related things (passports, tickets, pens, notebooks, maps, a physical book). It has three individual compartments, with the main one featuring eight interior compartments.

I have added an ALPAKA pouch to the strap of the Aer Travel Sling, which allows me to comfortably store small items like my earphones and my wallet.

One big downside of the Travel Sling is the fact that it can only be worn comfortably on the left shoulder, making day trips with it quite painful. While the strap itself is very comfortable, the fact that its orientation cannot be adjusted is a huge downside of this bag.

2022 Aer Day Sling 3 X-Pac

Due to size constraints that I began encountering with my 2021 Aer City Sling 2 during my time in Japan, especially after adding the X100VI to my EDC collection, I ended up upgrading it to the 2022 Aer Day Sling 3 X-Pac.

With a volume of 3L and an empty weight of 0.8lbs, it is not only slightly larger than the City Sling 2 but also noticeably more lightweight, thanks to the X-Pac material. In addition, it is less rigid than the Cordura, yet it keeps a sleeker shape even when fully packed.

The Day Sling 3 X-Pac fits the Anker A1257 (with its USB-C cable), the Fuji plus one additional Fuji battery, a microfiber cloth, painkillers, bandaids, disinfectant spray, my earphones, an additional 30cm 200W USB4 cable, my wallet, the Flipper and at least one phone. Even with all these things I’m able to carry it for a full day without it putting too much strain on either of my shoulders.

2021 Aer City Sling 2

My “personal item” for shorter trips was the black City Sling 2 by Aer, until I upgraded to the Day Sling 3 X-Pac. It is made of 1680-denier Cordura ballistic nylon, features a Fidlock magnetic fastener and offers 2.5L in volume. It can store my EDC items, as well as all travel related things (passports, tickets, pens, notebooks, maps, a physical book). It has an internally attached strap for keys and contains of three individual compartments, with the main one featuring six interior compartments.

Ever since I got the Day Sling 3 X-Pac I haven’t been using the City Sling 2 that much anymore.

Check-in

2018 Billabong 110L Booster Travel

~For check-in luggage I own the all-black Billabong 110L Booster Travel bag. It’s a mix of a hard shell suitcase and a bag, featuring a molded EVA base with rolls and a 600-denier polyester top. This way it’s lighter (3kg) than most 110L hard shell suitcases (approx. 5kg), yet still allows me to pack fragile things without fear of them breaking.

The Billabong has relatively large and soft rolls and offers four compression straps for the upper bag part. When packed lightly it’s relatively thin, but it can extend a significant amount to fit more/larger things. Obviously one can easily exceed check-in weight limits with this suitcase. However, being a rather tall human being, the additional size helps with fitting shoes and jackets without needing to squeeze them too much. With regular suitcases I usually run out of space rather than weight.

The bag has three external pockets, which however do not offer a streightforward locking solution. Hence I usually don’t put valuable things in these pockets and rather keep them for things like quickdry towels and MREs.

On the interior the Booster offers multiple compartments with plenty of room. I’ve flewn around with the Billabong and the only thing that was a con was the fact that unless the bag is filled properly it would not stand up right on its own, requiring to always stand next to something it can be leaned against or laid flat on the floor. I had fragile things transported in it and only a single time a portable 15" display took a hard hit on one corner, which was probably more of a packing fault than an actual issue with the bag. As long as everything that’s fragile is placed in the lower hard shell area of the bag nothing bad should happen.

Unfortunately I had to give away the Billabong and haven’t been able to find it for purchase anymore, hence I don’t have it anymore. I do however still highly recommend it and would get it again if I would find it for sale somewhere.

Other

2003 Pelican Storm iM2100

The yellow Pelican Storm iM2100 stores some of my most precious belongings: My keyboards.

I usually don’t take the case with me on trips, unless I’m moving to a different place, and it’s sole purpose is to keep its items safe and sound while being aesthetically pleasing enough to be placed anywhere in an apartment.