So, you’re going on a trip to Europe.   7 months you say?   That’s a long time away from home.   You must be packing ALOT of stuff!

Ah, no.

In fact, after reading website after website, it’s pretty much a universal truth that LESS IS MORE.

Something about lugging a huge, heavy backpack through crowded streets, buses and trains, surprisingly isn’t that much fun.

Most backpacks are either 55L or 70L.   Daypacks are usually in the 15L range.

I knew I wanted one of each.

The daypack will stay with me all the time – when I go out, I’ll carry it around and when I travel it’ll be my carry-on.   Inside, I’ll have stuff I need for the day (obviously, duh!) as well as my valuables and important documents.

The backpack, on the other hand, is going to stay at the hostel 24/7.   It’ll pretty much only have my clothes and toiletries.   When I’m going to the train station/bus depot/airport to get to the next city is the only time I’ll walk around with it.

So, I decided the best thing was to find a backpack that also had a daypack attached to it.   After checking around, I had it narrowed down to these two:

travel-pretrip-which-backpack-deuter
Deuter Traveller 55+10
travel-pretrip-which-backpack-farpoint
Osprey Farpoint 70

Of course they both were in different stores so I couldn’t see them side by side.   Mountain Equipment Co-op carried the Deuter brand while Atmosphere carried the Osprey.   So, I bought them both!   I brought them both home, tried them on and while very similar – the Osprey is not only about $70 cheaper but also a few pounds lighter, which, in the end, was the deciding factor.

I brought back the Deuter and my Osprey will be my new home for the next 7 months.

Euro Trip 2013, Pretrip, Trip Journal
Europe 2013
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