Best Travel Backpacks of 2026

Three bags come stuffed inside the LOVEVOOK 40L: two storage bags and a shoe bag, matched to the pack. It reads like filler until you're separating clean clothes from worn ones on the second night of a trip and realize you didn't have to buy anything extra. Around them sits an 18 by 14 by 8-inch body that opens 180 degrees, with a separate padded laptop compartment that takes a 17-inch machine.

Where this beats our top pick is price and packaging, not build. The shell is water-resistant polyester and it doesn't feel as dense in the hand as the tomtoc's recycled fabric. What we appreciate is how little thought the bag demands: four compartments, 11 pockets, a wet pocket for a swimsuit, and a hidden anti-theft pocket against your back that's the right size for a passport.

At 18 by 14 by 8 inches it sits right on the personal-item line budget carriers publish, which is either perfect or a problem depending on the sizer in front of you. Pack it to the zipper and you lose the squish that gets a soft bag under a seat; that's the trade for a full 40 liters that also clears the overhead bin.

Twenty-six liters is a small bag, small enough that we treated the Daylite as a personal item first and a trip pack second. That's exactly the point. Osprey sized it at 16.9 by 13 by 6.3 inches so it slides under the seat in front of you, then added a two-inch expansion zip that gives you six more liters for the things you buy on the way home.

What surprised us is how much of Osprey's harness thinking comes with a pack this light. The AirScape back panel is ventilated and contoured, so a day of walking a city doesn't leave your back soaked, and at 1.7 pounds empty the bag disappears on your shoulders. A full-length zip opens it like a suitcase, and the two stretch side pockets swallow a real water bottle.

Capacity is the honest limit. Three days of warm-weather clothes fit; a winter week doesn't, even expanded, and you get a tech sleeve rather than a full laptop workstation. For a weekend flight with nothing but a personal item, neither of those reaches you — this is the pack you carry all day and forget you're wearing.

The 1900's party trick is the panel that unzips and lies flat: leave the 17-inch laptop in its own compartment, send the whole bag through the scanner, and zip it back up on the other side. ScanSmart has been around long enough that frequent flyers recognize the shape, and it's still the most useful thing here when your trips are work trips.

Behind that panel is an office. An accordion file holder, an RFID-blocking organizer with a removable key clip, a padded tablet pocket and enough small pockets that a badge, a charger and a passport each have a home. The trolley strap slides over a roller handle, the top handle is molded rather than stitched, and SwissGear backs the bag with a five-year warranty.

As a clothes bag it gives ground. Thirty-one liters is modest before the file divider and organizer panels take their bite, and 9 inches of depth packs better in layers than in cubes. Carry it for laptops and documents and it's the most sorted bag in this group — a narrower job than most travelers need, done better than anything else here.

The cheapest way here to get a full-size pack that opens flat like a suitcase is to buy this one. The Taygeer gives you 35 liters in a 16.8 by 11 by 7-inch body, a 180-degree main zip, three main compartments and nine pockets. What you pay less for is the material, and you can feel the difference in the hand.

What it does better than its price suggests is keep the dirty away from the clean. A bonus shoe bag holds footwear apart from clothes and the wet pocket takes a damp swimsuit or a leaking toiletry bottle. There's a padded 15.6-inch laptop sleeve, two padded grab handles for carrying it like a duffel, and adjustable shoulder straps for when you'd rather wear it.

The compromises show up in the fabric and the harness rather than in the layout. The polyester is light enough that a full pack feels softer on your back than the tomtoc, and the straps are simpler than a contoured harness — noticeable on a long walk across a city, invisible on the walk from the gate to a taxi. For a first travel backpack, a spare, or a bag that lives in a closet between trips, that's very little to give up.

Two padded grab handles, one on top and one on the side, plus a shoulder harness that zips away behind a panel make this the most convertible pack here. Wear it through the airport, haul it by the side handle up a stairwell, then stow the straps and slide it onto a roller handle with the trolley strap.

The expansion zip is the real feature. The bag runs 40 liters at 19 by 13 by 8 inches and unzips to 45, which is the difference between a long weekend and a week if you're packing soft things. Inside there are elastic compression straps to hold a folded stack, a padded 17-inch laptop section, a sternum strap, a ventilated air-mesh back panel and lockable zipper heads.

Expand it and the extra volume goes into depth, so the bag gets deeper in the sizer at exactly the moment it's fullest. Measure before you open that zip on a strict personal-item fare; the easy plan is to expand on the way home, not on the way out.

What tips this one for us is the volume math. Forty-five liters in a bag that also carries like a duffel covers the trips a fixed-capacity pack can't, and it does it for less than most of this group. If your travel varies — a weekend one month, ten days the next — this is the one that adapts without a second purchase.

The coowoz wears two hats: backpack straps for the airport and a shoulder-strap conversion for the walk from the gate to the hotel. As light as anything here at 1.7 pounds, it's 25 liters in a 16.53 by 12.6 by 7.87-inch body — built for the space under the seat rather than the overhead bin.

For a bag this size it separates well: a water-resistant wet bag for damp clothes, a dedicated shoe compartment, a padded sleeve for a 15.6-inch laptop with a separate 13-inch tablet slot, and seven pockets in total. The polyester is water resistant, and this is one of the few packs here that can go in a washing machine, which matters more than it sounds after a week of airports.

Twenty-five liters is the catch. It's a two-night bag in winter and maybe four days in summer, and the stated capacity is optimistic once the laptop sleeve and shoe compartment take their share. Judged as a cheap personal item for short, warm-weather trips, though, we keep coming back to it: it fits under the seat, keeps wet and dirty gear apart, and adds almost nothing to what you're already carrying.

Very few backpacks can go in a washing machine, and this MATEIN is one of them. That line on the care label is why it earns a place here: after a dusty trip or a summer of commuting you can wash it instead of wiping it down, and it's the bag we hand to someone who wants one pack for the office and the airport alike.

At 18 by 12 by 7.8 inches and 30 liters it's sized as a personal item, not a week-long pack — a laptop, a change of clothes and a toiletry kit under the seat in front of you. There's a padded 15.6-inch laptop compartment, a luggage strap for a roller handle, a hidden anti-theft pocket against your back, a ventilated back panel and metal zippers throughout. At 708 grams it adds very little to what you're already carrying.

Thirty liters sounds generous until the laptop sleeve and a charger pouch take their share; think two or three days, or the second bag beside a roller. The 15.6-inch laptop limit is the other number to check — if you travel with a 17-inch machine, the tomtoc and the SwissGear take it and this one doesn't.

What we keep recommending it for is the cost of entry. It's the least expensive pack here, and it still gives you a real laptop compartment, a trolley strap and a washable shell — the parts people actually use every day. For a first travel backpack, a teenager's first flight bag, or a spare that lives in a suitcase, that's enough.