The Best Travel Backpack: How to Choose One You’ll Actually Keep
Buying the best travel backpack is one of those decisions that quietly shapes your entire trip. Get it right and you barely think about it again. Get it wrong and you spend six weeks resenting a bag that digs into your shoulders, swallows your socks and refuses to fit in an overhead locker.
The good news is that the “best” bag isn’t a single model. It’s the one that matches how you travel, how long you’re going for and how much you’re genuinely willing to carry up four flights of hostel stairs.
This guide breaks down sizes, waterproofing, the packs travellers actually rate, and how to pack the thing once you’ve bought it. All prices are the current European retail prices from the brands themselves, and they move with sales, so treat them as a starting point.
🎒 What actually makes a travel backpack “the best”?
Forget the marketing for a second. Four things separate a great travel backpack from an expensive mistake.
It opens like a suitcase. Top-loading hiking packs make you excavate everything to reach one T-shirt. A clamshell or front-loading design unzips flat, which is the single biggest quality-of-life upgrade you can buy.
It carries the weight on your hips, not your neck. A padded hip belt and a proper frame transfer most of the load off your shoulders. On a 20-minute walk from a bus station, this is the difference between fine and furious.
It survives baggage handlers. Look for thicker denier fabrics, YKK zips and reinforced stitching at the strap anchors.
It fits your torso, not just your body. Adjustable back length matters more than your height on paper.
Quick tip: If a shop lets you load a pack with 8kg and walk around for ten minutes, do it. Ten minutes tells you more than ten reviews.
📏 What size travel backpack do you actually need?
Most people buy too big. A larger bag doesn’t stay half empty, it just fills up with things you never use.
| Size | Best for | Reality check |
|---|---|---|
| 20 to 30L | Weekend city breaks, one-bag minimalists | Fits under most seats. No hip belt, so keep it light |
| 35 to 45L | The sweet spot for most trips, from two weeks to two years | Carry-on friendly on most airlines. Enough for four seasons if you layer |
| 50 to 60L | Cold climates, camping gear, longer overland routes | Comfortable to carry, but you will check it in |
| 65L and up | Expeditions, volunteering stints, gear-heavy trips | Heavy when full. Only worth it if you truly need the volume |
If you’re torn, size down. Almost nobody comes home from six months wishing they’d packed more. For a full breakdown of what goes inside, our hostel packing list covers the essentials without the fluff.
🌧️ Where can you buy the best waterproof backpack for travel?
Here’s the honest answer most gear guides skip: almost no travel backpack is genuinely waterproof. Zips leak. Seams leak. Water-resistant is what you’re actually buying.
What to look for instead:
- TPU-coated or ripstop nylon shells, which shrug off drizzle and puddles
- Coated, high-tenacity fabrics like the NanoTough nylon on the Osprey Transporter range, built specifically for abrasion and water resistance
- A packable rain cover, either included or bought separately for around €20 to €30
- Dry bags for the things that matter, meaning electronics, documents and one dry set of clothes. Osprey’s own 12L Ultralight Dry Sack is €28 and does the job
Where to buy in Europe: brand stores like Osprey EU, Cotopaxi EU and Peak Design EU ship across the continent, Decathlon covers the budget end and rain covers, and outdoor specialists such as Bergfreunde stock the bigger names. Second-hand marketplaces are excellent for Osprey packs, which are built to outlast one owner.
Monsoon season? Assume everything gets wet and pack accordingly. A cheap dry bag has saved more passports than any premium pack ever has.
🏆 What is the best travel backpack right now?
These are the packs that consistently come up in traveller conversations, hostel common rooms and gear testing, with current European prices from the brands direct.
| Pack | Size | Price | Best for | Buy from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Osprey Farpoint / Fairview | 40L | €180 | All-round carry comfort | Osprey EU |
| Osprey Transporter | 36L | €195 | Wet climates and rough handling | Osprey EU |
| Osprey Farpoint / Fairview | 55L | €200 | Trips with real gear | Osprey EU |
| Peak Design Travel Backpack | 45L | €299.99 | Camera and laptop carriers | Peak Design EU |
| Cotopaxi Allpa | 35L | €300 | Organisation obsessives | Cotopaxi EU |
Buy it: Cotopaxi EU, €300 or Cotopaxi UK, £220
Cotopaxi Allpa 35L
The Allpa is the bag people recommend to friends unprompted. Its clamshell opens flat into zippered mesh compartments, so you can see everything you own at a glance and skip packing cubes entirely. The shell mixes TPU-coated 1000D polyester with 840D ballistic nylon, which is why it shrugs off conveyor belts and hostel floors alike, and every external zip sits under anti-theft webbing.
At 1.6kg and 56 x 30 x 25cm it stays carry-on legal, and the hip belt detaches completely when you want a cleaner shape for flights. The trade-off is a flat back panel with no airflow channels, which you’ll notice in humid climates, and a European price that sits well above the Osprey competition.
Buy it: Farpoint 40, €180 or Fairview 40, €180
Osprey Farpoint 40 and Fairview 40
The default backpacker recommendation, and the newest version earns it. Osprey’s LightWire frame and adjustable torso length put the weight on your hips properly, which matters enormously on long airport and station walks, and the whole harness zips away behind a panel so nothing snags on a baggage belt.
At 1.48kg it’s the lightest full-featured pack here, with a 16 inch laptop sleeve, a direct-zip toiletry pocket and lockable sliders on the main compartment. Internal organisation is deliberately basic. Fairview is the women’s fit, Farpoint the men’s, and both are covered by Osprey’s All Mighty Guarantee, which is the real reason these bags last a decade.
Buy it: Osprey EU, €195
Osprey Transporter 36
If your trip involves rain, boats or buses with roof racks, this is the one. The squared silhouette maximises space inside international carry-on limits, and the NanoTough recycled nylon shell is coated for water and abrasion resistance rather than simply treated with a spray that wears off.
Practical touches stack up fast: split main compartment for two-sided packing, rear access to a 16 inch laptop sleeve, a proper water bottle pocket and a pass-through sleeve for wheeled luggage. The backpanel and straps tuck away entirely, so it doubles as a duffel. It’s unisex fit with a simpler harness than the Farpoint, so it suits shorter carries more than all-day walking.
Buy it: Peak Design EU, €299.99
Peak Design Travel Backpack 45L
Expensive, and worth it for a specific person: anyone travelling with a camera, a laptop and a habit of needing both quickly. It expands from 35L to 45L and opens from the top, both sides, the front and the rear, so nothing is ever buried.
The weatherproof #8 and #10 UltraZips are the standout, built with abrasion-resistant thread and backed by a lifetime warranty. Add a camera cube and it becomes a proper photography bag without looking like one. It’s heavier than the alternatives and the suspension is built for terminals rather than trails, so pair it with shorter walks and more taxis.
👩 What is the best travel backpack for women?
Women’s-fit packs aren’t a marketing gimmick. They’re built around shorter torso lengths, narrower shoulder widths and contoured straps that sit differently across the chest. If a unisex pack has always felt like it was pulling backwards, this is usually why.
Strong options:
- Osprey Fairview 40, €180. The women’s version of the Farpoint, with a shorter back panel and a hip belt shaped for wider hip angles. The best starting point for most travellers.
- Osprey Fairview 55, €200. Same fit, plus a detachable 15L daypack that doubles as your carry-on personal item.
- Cotopaxi Allpa 35L, €300. Unisex, but the removable hip belt and flat harness suit shorter torsos better than most.
That said, plenty of women travel happily with unisex packs and plenty of men find women’s-fit harnesses more comfortable. Fit beats label, every time. Our solo travel packing list goes deeper on what to put inside once you’ve chosen.
👨 What is the best travel backpack for men?
Men’s-fit packs generally run longer in the back panel and straighter through the shoulder straps. The practical upshot: if you’re over about 180cm, a standard men’s fit will usually sit better than a women’s or one-size design.
The Osprey Farpoint 40 at €180 remains the benchmark, mostly because its torso adjustment covers a genuinely wide range of body sizes. For taller travellers carrying more gear, the Farpoint 55 at €200 adds a zip-off daypack without becoming unwieldy.
If your trip involves a laptop and city hopping rather than trails, the Peak Design Travel Backpack 45L at €299.99 is the sharper-looking choice, though you’ll trade away some hip-belt comfort.
One thing worth checking before you buy: measure your torso from the C7 vertebra at the base of your neck to the top of your hip bones. Osprey publishes a fit chart for exactly this, and matching it beats guessing from your height.
🌏 Which travel backpack is best for long trips?
For anything over about three months, priorities shift. Comfort and repairability start to matter far more than clever pockets.
What long-haul travellers end up valuing:
- A serious suspension system. You’ll wear this thing hundreds of times.
- A warranty that actually gets honoured. Osprey’s All Mighty Guarantee and Peak Design’s lifetime warranty both have strong reputations here.
- A detachable daypack, so you’re not buying a second bag in month one.
- Lockable zips, because dorm lockers and night buses are a fact of life.
The Osprey Farpoint 55 or Fairview 55 at €200 is the most commonly recommended long-trip pack, and the included 15L daypack does a lot of heavy lifting. Need more volume for cold climates or trekking gear? The Farpoint 70 and Fairview 70 step up to €220.
Going properly long? Read our backpacking checklist before you start filling it, and consider borrowing or buying second-hand, as covered in our sustainable packing list.
🧦 How do you best pack a travel backpack?
Packing well is mostly about weight distribution and never having to unpack the whole bag to find one item.
The order that works:
- Bottom: sleepwear, spare shoes, anything you won’t need until the evening
- Middle, closest to your spine: your heaviest items, so the weight sits over your hips rather than pulling you backwards
- Top and outer pockets: rain jacket, snacks, water bottle, anything you’ll want without stopping
- Roll, don’t fold, and pack clothes vertically so you can see every item from above
Packing cubes are the upgrade nobody regrets. They turn a bag into drawers, which is transformative when you’re living out of it and changing cities every four days. Osprey’s Daylite cube set is €34 for three sizes.
Weigh it before you leave the house. Aim for under 10kg for a 40L pack. Anything heavier and you’ll feel it on every set of stairs.
More detail in our guide to how to pack for a hostel.
🔐 What features matter most if you’re staying in hostels?
Hostel life puts specific demands on a bag, and they’re not the ones gear reviews usually test for.
Lockable zips. Two zip pulls that meet under a lockable slider, so a small padlock closes them together. Bring two locks, one for the bag and one for the locker.
A footprint that fits a locker. Most hostel lockers take a 40L pack. Anything over 55L often won’t fit, so plan to lock the valuables rather than the bag.
A front-loading opening, so you can grab clothes from a top bunk at 6am without waking the room.
A daypack or packable tote for day trips, laundry runs and beach afternoons. Osprey sells its Farpoint and Fairview daypack separately for €80 if your pack didn’t come with one.
Once you’re checked in, the Hostelworld app does the social heavy lifting: Linkups are the events run by hostels themselves, from family dinners to pub crawls, and you’ll find them on hostel pages or in the app. Our guide to finding hostel events explains how to spot the good ones.
💶 How much should you spend on a travel backpack?
There are three honest tiers, and most travellers overspend or underspend by ignoring the middle one.
Under €100. Decathlon’s Forclaz and Quechua travel packs, or older models in the sales, do the job for shorter trips. Expect heavier fabrics, simpler suspension and a shorter lifespan.
€180 to €200. The sweet spot, and where the whole Osprey travel range sits: Farpoint and Fairview 40 at €180, Transporter 36 at €195, Farpoint and Fairview 55 at €200. You’re paying for a real frame, recycled bluesign-approved fabrics and a guarantee worth using.
€300 and up. Premium textiles, custom hardware and specialised design, which is where the Peak Design 45L and the European price of the Cotopaxi Allpa land. Worth it for camera gear or full-time travel. Overkill for a summer in Southeast Asia.
Cheapest route of all: buy second-hand. Osprey packs hold up for a decade, and marketplaces are full of barely-used ones from trips that never happened. See also our travel essentials checklist.
🧭 So, which travel backpack should you buy?
If you want one answer: a 40L front-loading pack with a proper hip belt, in whichever fit suits your torso. The Osprey Farpoint and Fairview 40 at €180 covers the vast majority of trips at a price that doesn’t require a second thought.
Everything else is refinement. Rain is solved with a coated shell like the Transporter’s and a dry bag. Long trips reward a 55L with its detachable daypack. Camera gear justifies the Peak Design. Obsessive organisation justifies the Allpa.
Then comes the fun part: filling it and going somewhere. Book your beds on Hostelworld, grab a Social Pass if you want the chats and meetups without a booking, and check the city Events pages for the markets, concerts and festivals happening while you’re in town.
The best travel backpack is the one you stop noticing. Pack it light, wear it well, and let it disappear into the trip.
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❓FAQs: Choosing the Best Travel Backpack
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