What is a Crossover Day Pack? (Read this first or my reviews will make no sense)

I have been in the market for what I like to call a "Crossover Day Pack" for about nine months.  There are several good companies making a lot of laptop carrying daypacks, but most of them are rubbish (see the related article here).  Of course, my needs may be different than yours, so this discussion may be useless for you.  However, if you are a working professional who carries digital devices with him during the week and hiking supplies with him on the weekend, then we are looking for the same thing.

First let me tell you what I define as a Crossover Day Pack (CDP).  Most fundamentally, it must be able to do well on the way to the office and do well on a weekend hike in the "wilderness."  This is admittedly asking a lot as there are some mutually exclusive elements at work here.   For example, a pack built exclusively for the office has to look okay with a suit and should be able to slide under an airline seat.  A pack for a day hike needs to have a design & suspension system that allows you to hike in comfort for hours.  You can't cover both of these needs without serious compromises.  That's why it is so hard to make one much less find one that works!

In a sense, the Crossover Day Pack is exactly like the city bike.  A city bike is not great for speed on the open road and it is not great for climbing muddy mountain trails.  Yet this same bike does perfectly well on city streets and country dirt roads.  Like the bicycle analogy, it is great to have a separate bag for the pure office conditions (i.e. briefcase) and pure trail conditions (i.e. technical backpack).  I, however, would love to have a single bag that does most of what I want it to do, well.

If I were being driven around all day in a limo from my private plane to my penthouse office, then a briefcase would be a perfect solution.  None of my papers would get messed up and my laptop is safely ensconced within.  Importantly, I would never have to carry it for more than 300 feet.  Since my situation is a bit more pedestrian (literally), I need something that can move my stuff as I move via foot, bicycle, and subway car.  In a sense, a Crossover Day Pack is great traveling pack.  It is at home in the boardroom, beach, Berkshires, and Broadway.  This is my target.

Here is a list of the six features that I had to have in my ideal Crossover Day Pack (from hereon: CDP), in order of importance:

- A waist belt

- A padded laptop section

- About $130

- Divided organizer pocket

- A frame-sheet or internal structure

- 28 L capacity

Let me explain why each of these features are so essential in order:

A waist belt

I see a waist belt as an absolutely essential pack element – even if you are someone who never uses the waist belt.  If a manufacturer has included a waist belt, this is usually an indicator that they actually care about the design of the suspension system (aka, "the shoulder straps").   Also know that if you currently do not use a waist belt on a daypack that has one, you are really missing out on significant functionality. Perhaps you are too concerned about looking like a geek if you are using it, but know that a waist belt stabilizes the load laterally.  If you use a pack on your bike, you would be crazy NOT to use a waist belt as you wind through city/campus traffic.  Similarly, being able to stabilize the side-to-side motion with a waist belt when you are clambering up a rock face on the weekend is equally essential.  I would love to have a scaled down hip belt like I have on my Mountainsmith multi-day pack, but that is simply asking too much.  The bottom line is this: you may not use a waist belt all the time, but when you need it, it is key to have it.  Also know that if your pack has a waist belt, it also will have a sternum strap – and equally key part of pack stability that more often than not IS found on all but the crappiest daypacks found at Walmart.

A padded laptop section

This is a commuter pack, after all.   I have to have a place for my 15" MacBook.  I often only carry my iPad in this computer section, but I want to be able to protect my full computer when I need to.  Sometimes you can get away with using a hydration bladder sleeve in more technical packs that lack the true laptop section, but usually it will not be padded and it will be more difficult to access.  The best packs keep the padded section off the bottom of the pack to ensure that an inadvertent drop will not transmit the shock directly to the laptop.  The laptop section needs to be against your back as it will likely be the heaviest single thing you are carrying and you need to pack your heaviest things closest to your back for stability.  A true winner is when the laptop pocket is accessible without having to open up your pack's main compartment.

About $130

This seems to be the sweet spot for this level of pack.  I can go lower, but I will likely lose the features listed above.  If I go too much higher (as in above $150) then you start to creep into technical packs that don't work well for the commuter elements (they lose the dedicated laptop pocket discussed above and the organizer pocket discussed below).  $130 also gets you into the more reputable pack makers that are known for their multiday monsters so you also get the trickledown technology that you would not get from off-brand Walmart packs.  I review packs from $55-$130 in this blog.  All of them are brands that would be recognized by someone who knows what GoreTex is.  If you don't know what GoreTex is, I am shocked that you are still reading this article.

Divided organizer pocket

One could argue that this should be the feature at the very top of this list.  If a pack did not have this, then I ruled it out.  In fact, you will see that one pack was described as having an organizer pocket and they lied.  Grrr…I am referring to a zippered compartment that has smaller divided pockets that hold all the stuff that you use constantly.  While I could simply toss all this stuff into a compartment as a jumbled mess, too often I need to fish out something blindly (i.e. below the tray table in the plane, while paying at a drive through, or in a meeting when my ringer goes off) and then the value of the organizer is really felt.  This compartmentalization also protects your more delicate items like your cell phone, portable hard drive, and stylus from each others' sharp edges and bangs.  Consider, too, that if someone asks you to sign a document, you know exactly where to go to find a pen instead of looking like a noob digging through all the pockets of your pack.

A frame-sheet or internal structure

Having a full internal frame at this level is not necessary, as you are not going to carry more than 20 pounds at a time.  (If you are, you are looking at the wrong type of pack, friend.) However, a frame-sheet (a stiff piece of plastic along the back of the pack) or high density EVA foam along the back is needed to prevent the pack from collapsing under its own weight when it is not fully loaded.  Not only does this make it easier to find items, but it also makes it easier to pack.  Furthermore, having a stiff back prevents items inside your pack from poking into your back when you are wearing the backpack.  Lastly, a stiffer more structured back of your pack is cooler as it allows for air to flow through (typically via channels), thus helping to avoid getting a sweaty back.  I have an otherwise great pack made by Patagonia (Refugio 28L) that kills me because it is like a wet noodle when not fully packed and it makes me sweat like I am wearing a plastic t-shirt because it hugs my back. 

28 L capacity

This is pretty much the baby bear's rocking chair when it comes to size.  Just right.  Any bigger and my stuff would bang around inside of it, any smaller and I would have to leave important stuff at home.  Of course there is really not a huge difference in pack size from 25 L to 32 L so the packs I am reviewing typically fall into this range.  The lack of difference stems from the fact that manufacturers have different ways of measuring 28 L.  Also, the measurement usually just includes the main compartment and ignores that satellite pockets which can add a lot of capacity (not to mention flexibility) to a bag.

So, there you have it: my top six necessities for a CDP.  Know that this seriously limits one's selection.   Obviously, I have not purchased and played with all of the possibilities so if you know of a CDP that I have not yet reviewed, please let me know and I will add it to this blog.  I bought most of my packs from Amazon, eBags, Zappos, GearX, and Backcountry – all great companies who stand behind the products they sell and accept the fact that I could be returning their product.  (Most of them offered free returns!)  Note that these are all reviews based on packs that I purchased in the summer of 2014 so if you are reading these articles in summer of 2015, know that things will certainly have changed. 

In the reviews that follow, I provided a set of photos that I took for some of the packs.  Unfortunately, I returned a bunch of packs before I thought to make this blog and did not take photos for all of them.  This is really unfortunate because many of the packs I reviewed have shockingly few photos showing their interior.  It's amazing to me that there is such a dearth of photos for some packs out there.  It's the reason why I have to buy the packs to see what they have to offer. I hope that by providing this blog, you can avoid having to buy thirty packs like me.

(Note to readers:  I added an article that amended some of what I had to say here based on reviewing many packs.  Live and learn...).  Follow the link: Some 'must have' features I need to add for details.