The best travel backpacks cover everything, from weekends away and business trips to backpacking and hiking. While wheeled luggage may be all the rage, it’s not for everyone. If you want to slip through airports quickly and stay hands-free, you’re better off with one of the best travel backpacks.
Combining the lay-flat opening clamshell design of a suitcase yet retaining a soft design and shoulder straps, the travel backpack is a relatively new innovation that’s now finding its niche and setting itself apart from the everyday best backpacks.
Whether you’re after something for the weekend, a business trip or a yomp across the moors, we’ve got the best travel backpack for your style, needs and budget.
Best travel backpacks ranking 2023
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Although it’s designed as the ultimate carry-on for three days, the Peak Design Travel Backpack 30L’s comfy shoulder straps can be stowed under magnetic flaps if you need to check it in. There’s also a luggage pass-through for roller bag carry underneath. This smart and efficiently designed backpack’s magnetic appeal stretches to some stash pockets that can take water bottles, but when empty sit flush against the side of the backpack. A third unusual feature sees it expand from 27L to 33L, though a final unique flourish – the ability to both attach compression straps to the outside and then stow them in a magnetic-closing pouch – seems over-engineered.
It’s a shame that there are no compression straps inside the main compartment for clothing, though that area has plenty of zipped pockets for bits ‘n’ pieces. In here is also a secured and padded pouch for a maximum 16-inch laptop, as well as a tablet. Looking great, comfortable to wear and with some sought-after features, the Peak Design Travel Backpack 30L is an excellent example of a professional-looking travel backpack. It’s available in black, sage green and midnight blue.
There’s no sadder sight than a backpacker hefting 80L around the world. Cue the Eagle Creek Tour Travel Pack 55L+, the perfect sized backpack for efficient and fun long-term travel – as well as for serious hiking – whose ultra-comfy straps can all be zipped-up safely for when it’s time to take to the skies. That’s thanks to a zip-around cover that completely envelopes its comfortable shoulder straps, sturdy hip-belt and adjustable back support system (though it is a bit of a squeeze). Rather cleverly that cover is reversible and elasticated, also acting as a rain cover for the backpack for downlours.
The Eagle Creek Tour Travel Pack 55L+’s clamshell opening main compartment – which can also be accessed from the top – houses a padded sleeve for a maximum 15-inch laptop. It also contains compression straps for clothes and a large mesh pocket for sundries. Add grab handles top and sides, a zip to expand the entire bag to 62L litres and a stretch water bottle pouch (not to mention that it’s made from recycled materials) and the Eagle Creek Tour Travel Pack 55L+ surely sets the benchmark for how all backpackers should travel.
Have laptop(s) will travel? If the clamshell design is a common theme in travel backpacks, so is a laptop sleeve, but two laptop sleeves? That’s much rarer, and we found that the Air Travel Backpack can actually take three laptops. If that’s overkill there’s little else to complain about on this travel backpack that’s carefully designed to suit the needs of those who spend a lot of time in airports, airline cabins and on urban journeys.
With a flash of either crimson, blue, black or chocolate full-grain leather on its grab handle and across the front, the Air Travel Backpack is about as big a carry-on as can be and carefully separates clothes (which get compression straps) from tech gear. That latter mobile office section opens clamshell-style, too, making it easy to access laptops in its two padded sleeves during work meetings without going anywhere near your dirty shirts. However, what we love most about the Air Travel Backpack is its streamlined look; there’s no trace of loose straps or buckles and the stretch pocket for a water bottle is invisible unless you use it. Not only could you walk off a plane straight into a business meeting with the super-smart Air Travel Backpack, but you could also live out of it for several days.
What makes a bag a ‘travel backpack’ is debatable, but arguably it’s a clamshell opening that mimics a suitcase. However, what that’s used for can differ. Take Tumi’s Brief Pack, which unlike others here is not only aimed at business travellers, but very specifically at those that frequently take a laptop through airport security.
A tough work bag that easily stands-up on its own on a scanner belt or in a tray, the Brief Pack has a section that zippers around three sides that flops a maximum 15-inch laptop down ready for inspection. No more putting a laptop into a separate tray. It’s got plenty more going for it as a carry-on, too, with a roomy section for accessories and perhaps a change of clothes, a water bottle pocket and plenty of small pockets on the front for carry-on essentials. Like many of the bags here it’s also got a pass-through strap on the rear that can be slipped over the telescopic handle of upright rolling luggage.
While some travel backpacks go straight for the business traveller and others aim for backpackers, the Incase EO Travel Backpack aims for the rest of us. A simple, fairly boxy design available in black, grey or navy, this 24L bag can be expanded to 33L using a wraparound zipper, though doing so does make this bag slightly too deep. Cue some droop, which is not helped by its soft design or its exterior compression straps, which prove slightly annoying to use. However, core features impress if you travel light.
The headliner is surely its clamshell-opening main compartment, which features two sides for storing clothes, each secured not using compression straps, but with zipped webbing closures. There’s another soft compartment behind it for a maximum 16-inch laptop and a large tablet, an organiser pocket across the front that can take a pair of shoes, and a soft pocket for keys, a phone or sunglasses. Build quality is good, though since its shoulder straps are fairly basic and that expansion option brings a saggy look it’s best not to overstuff the Incase EO Travel Backpack.
How to choose the best travel backpack for you
The most important thing to consider is what you’ll use it for. Some travel backpacks are designed for city breaks, short flights and weekends away while others zero in on being professional-looking travel backpacks designed for business trips, and often building-in laptop sleeves.
Then there are outdoor-specific travel backpacks aimed at backpackers and backcountry hikers who simply want easier access to their stuff than a traditional rucksack offers.
In our search for the next travel backpack, we’ve reviewed and compared backpacks from trusted brands like Tumi, Peak Design, Eagle Creek, Incase and Waterfield Designs.
