Hi Team,
I'm heading to Europe for 4 weeks in December/January.
I currently have an Osprey Farpoint 40 backpack which I use pretty much weekly for short domestic journeys for work, and it worked well for a week in Japan in the spring.
I'm currently weighing up if it'll be big enough for winter in Europe, my current thoughts are it won't… I've done a test pack of some clothes and found while I could cram a fair bit of gear in there, it's not quite as much as I'd like (with no room to pick up anything along the way).
Does anyone have any recommendations of larger backpacks, or experiences of what they've used in cold climates? Purely for city hopping and the like, won't be hiking with it. I find backpacks far easier to negotiate on trains, and around cities than any other option. I'm also a bigger guy and relatively fit, so a heavier pack doesn't really deter me. I'm thinking something in the 50-60L area gives me a useful bump over the 40, and gives me 10L or so to accumulate things along the way. Flying with Qantas so check in isn't an issue.
Some of the ones I'm looking at are the larger osprey bags, deuter (transit/traveller), and the kelty redwing. Musts are a decent laptop pocket (one of the only negatives with the farpoint I have is the location of the laptop pocket), decent enough frame/carry system, and the ability to stow away the shoulder and hip straps for check in. I'm not sold on the merits of an integrated day pack, they seem to make the bags quite deep, and I'm happy whipping out my little kathmandu day pack that scrunches up to something the size of a wallet to tool around the suburbs.
Thanks in advance.
I have the Deuter ACT Lite 40+10L which I took to Nepal for 6 weeks last year. I'll be taking it to Vietnam later this year. I found that this was perfectly sized.
Do you have a gear list? Personally I wouldn't want to take anything larger than this 40+10L pack.