I’m on the road a lot, either commuting from Frankfurt am Main to Zurich and back in a single day, or spending several days at a time in southern Germany and Switzerland. Whenever possible, I travel by train. But I don’t want to lug around a ton of luggage, just a single backpack.

I now own several of them, each bought for a specific situation in my life. One with multiple simple compartments for a normal workday with mobile gear, one with just a single roll-top compartment for work with fixed equipment, one for hiking, and a cheap one for the gym from many years ago. The last one isn’t great, but the first two are good for their intended purpose. It’s just that their intended purpose doesn’t exist for me right now.

Half of Europe in One Day

For our team day, I only go into the office on Tuesdays every two weeks. I leave at 2:15 AM and get back home at 9:30 PM (or an hour later). I take my laptop, Kindle Scribe, chargers and cables, and my Backbone One controller with me. And, of course, food and drinks. On the way back, I often pick up some groceries from Switzerland. My roll-top backpack is too disorganized for this, and my “business backpack” with its three compartments is too rigidly divided, making the individual sections too small. You’re always rummaging around and searching for things.

The Multi-Day Trip

For multi-day trips, clothes replace the food and drinks. The roll-top backpack is completely out of the question, and the compartments of the other one are definitely too small. A pair of pants, underwear, and socks in one compartment, a sweater and t-shirt in another, and everything else gets squeezed into the third. It’s great when the heavy charger is at the bottom and you have to squeeze your hand past a bulge of clothes.

The Solution?

I really need a new backpack that can keep up with my nomadic life. Somehow, Google and Instagram have also discovered that I’m looking for a new backpack. At least this is one of the few cases where the advertising algorithms have actually recognized my interests and are showing me ads that are helpful.

Besides the usual trendy backpacks like Kapten & Son (at least there were no ads for Fjällräven), one backpack particularly caught my eye: the Backpack Pro from onemate. I find its look modern and simple, and it also seems very practical. The compartments open nice and wide, and the main compartment can even be loaded from the side through the back. There are small pockets for cables and such, as well as a separate compartment for shoes or dirty laundry.

But the Amazon reviews are giving me some second thoughts. For a price of €150, there shouldn’t be any quality issues, but according to customers, there are. Zippers that break and one person reported weak straps. The latter could be a one-off. Still, €150 is a steep price for a backpack.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good backpack that can handle everything from a long day trip to a multi-day trip?