Kathmandu named their purpose built travel bag the ‘Shuttle 40L Convertible Backpack Cargo v4’. I guess the marketing guys at Kathmandu brainstormed a few words, and then went out to drink lunch forgetting the catalogue deadline. Jimmy the mail boy transcribed the whiteboard for the graphic design team, and voila, we have the ‘Shuttle 40L Convertible Backpack Cargo v4’. I find the name a little wordy, so for this review I’ll call it ‘the bag’.
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| Photo: http://www.kathmandu.com.au |
The bag is aimed squarely at the lightweight traveller – lightweight in mass, not in mission. If your travel mission includes saving time and hassle at transit hubs, then this is the bag for you. If you can travel with only one bag, and have no need for checked baggage, this is the bag for you. If your idea of travel is to be agile and adaptable, you have found your next best friend.
To maximise the amount of cargo the bag can consume before hitting the airline-industry carry-on limit of 7kg, Kathmandu kept the weight down to 800g. They also sized the bag to be within most airline dimension limits. The bag has no frame, no wheels, and no extendable handle. If you are looking for a sexy hard-shell, four-wheeled, Samsonite® to match your nail polish on your next trip to the fashion shows in New York and Milan, then this is not the bag for you.
The handles allow it to be carried or manhandled in a variety of ways: it can be pulled to the roof of a bus in rural India by the moulded handles on either end; it can be carried as a duffle bag between security and immigration checks at Charles de Gaulle airport by the main straps; or it can be worn as a backpack along the Inca trail in Peru. It has pockets too. Kathmandu haven’t gone over-the-top, but judiciously provided a few pockets to quarantine your precious things. Like little life rafts, they provide safety for precious cargo instead of drifting loose in the rough seas of the main compartment.
Prior to a two-week trip to Malaysia TightArseTravel purchased two of these bags as we wanted to try one-bag travel for the first time. They performed admirably. They were poked through security scanners in airports, shoved in overhead bins and under seats in airplanes, used as armrests on trains, footrests on buses, chucked onto piles of other luggage on ferries, and plonked into boots of taxis. We walked between train stations and hotels with them as backpacks, and ran to avoid tropical downpours carrying them duffle-bag style. With the main compartment opened completely, they sat on spare beds in hotels with their meagre contents visible and easily found.
The Kathmandu Shuttle Cargo is not the most stylish travel bag on the market, but if you are looking for a simple, robust do-it-all travel bag, this just might be the one you have been looking for.
