I bought a Targus Voyager backpack a while ago after an extended (but very lazy) search for a decent-sized backpack with a laptop sleeve. It’s a very big, nice, durable backpack, and it has served me well.
It doesn’t, however, have much room for lunch. My new diet planning strategy requires a fair bit of space for everything, and now that I’m taking the bus to work sometimes, that turns out to be a bit annoying.
So I figured I was in the market for a new backpack. I started searching for a backpack that had a large cooler pocket, which landed me on the Oakley Lunch Box, which from the name alone seems like it would fit the bill. Looking at it, however, it’s a bit of a misnomer:
My girlfriend pointed out that Dakine and Oglio both have great packs, which lead me to the Oglio Freezer Cooler pack. This thing is absolutely lovely, but no laptop sleeve.
In the course of these discoveries, I happened on the world of photographer packs, which seemed pretty amazing and well-suited to my needs. In particular the Tarmac Adventure series and Lowepro’s various offerings caught my eye.
They’re very, very nice. And I’d like to own a DSLR sometime in the near future so’s I can take pictures so’s I can draw comics that look halfway sensible. But they’re kind of expensive, and it’s not clear if I can really store the stuff I want in those camera storage bits. And then the miracle of internets decided to introduce me to pilot bags. Tell me, have you met the V1 Propac?
This thing has a gigantic cooler bit that zips almost completely off, it has a laptop sleeve, it is big, it is nice, it has a briefcase-style handle. AND it’s cheaper than most of the bags above.
Yeah, I’m sold. I guess we’ll see for sure when I get it, but for now it seems hard to beat.