For the last few years, the bag I’ve taken as my underseat bag on the likes of Ryanair and easyJet is one I bought from the middle of Lidl. It’s about 30l and it’s made of nylon, so the bag itself is taking up almost zero of the very limited weight or size allowance. But it started coming apart at the seams and there’s only so much fixing I can do before there’s more repair than bag, so it was time to find a replacement. And after a lot of searching and a lot of huffing and puffing over prices, I found a potential replacement. It’s all the more promising because I recognised it as the bag that Kylie of Between England and Everywhere recommends, although she has it in the tropical print and mine is in deep teal blue.
Actually, this bag has done two trips to London, so it isn’t the first time I’ve taken and used it on but a couple of nights in a coffin on my way to a city-wide live action Cluedo game and to the opera are a very different proposition to taking it on a train adventure in another country for a whole week. What I learned from the Cluedo weekend was that it seemed pretty capacious but that I need packing cubes, otherwise I’m going to spend the whole time rummaging uselessly in it, and that I prefer slipping things into the mesh inside the front pocket than just putting them loose in the front pocket. It looks like a good structured bag but when it’s not full, it tends to collapse on itself. I guess that means it’s easier to force into baggage sizers but I’d like it to hold its shape just a little better.
The Metz 30l – and its smaller Ryanair-sized sibling, the 24l – has a fairly roomy main compartment and a lot of pockets. The main compartment has a zip that runs around three sides so it opens up like a clamshell suitcase, although it’s from the short bottom end rather than the long sides like a book. It means it’s easy to use up all the internal space. I’d have liked a compression strap in there, like there is inside my Osprey Fairpoint 40 and I may decide I want it enough to sew it in myself. I have to note, I’m not a very light packer anyway and I took a drybag with my swimming stuff in and this bag just isn’t designed for a packing cube plus a spherical 5- to 10-litre drybag (it didn’t come with a volume but it’s pretty small for a swimsuit and a travel towel). It did always seem to have space for yet another just one small thing shoved down the sides and I was perpetually amazed at how there was always room on top if you open the zip carefully but it also felt like it was always overfilled. I suppose that’s the nature of spending eight nights away with an easyJet personal item bag but I spent the entire time outside of the airport with half my stuff in a folding IKEA daybag.
As for the pockets, the front one varies a little depending on what colour you pick – some colours have a rain flap over the zip and a pleat that folds in to give it a little more room and some colours have the zip uncovered and an outward pleat. The front main pocket unzips around three sides again and is very flat. I wouldn’t put anything directly in it. The front flap of it is a zipped mesh pocket and all my little bits and pieces went in there, though. The back of the front pocket has a divider probably meant for a tablet and a few more mesh pockets. Some of them are zipped but that front pocket is so slim and my luggage pushes it out so far that I didn’t want to put anything in it.
There’s a zipped pocket on the front of the front pocket too but again, when the bag’s full, it pushes it all out too much to get anything bulkier than a pen or a bit of paper in there.
On the side there’s a water bottle pocket and it has compression straps in case you need to squish it as thin as possible to get it in the baggage sizer – and yes, if you don’t have, for example, a down jacket bulking it out, it does fit in the easyJet personal item sizer.
Last secret – and I don’t know if Kylie’s never found it or mine is a newer model – but there’s a zip pocket hiding behind the back pad. It’s not wide enough for obvious travel valuables like a passport – at least, I don’t think so – but it’s a great place to hide your keys or cash. Just above that is a strap so you can slide it over the handle of your wheely luggage, if you’re carrying this in addition to a proper suitcase and not instead of one. It’s very narrow and I reckon it would fall of sideways but I haven’t tested it.
One thing that mystifies me is the grab handle on top, which makes sense but it’s wrapped in padding with velcro, like for when you want to strip two handles of a duffle bag together to make a nice comfortable balanced central handle. I just can’t figure out what purpose it serves here.
Do I love it? I don’t know whether I don’t love it or whether I’m just really not very good at packing a personal item. Yes, I think it would absolutely work better without the drybag, that’s on me and on the requirements of this particular trip. But after weeks of searching for a suitable-sized bag that doesn’t cost the earth (I’m looking at you, Osprey & Cotopaxi), this seems to be an adequate answer to the problem. And I also own it in its slightly smaller Ryanair-friendly size, in orange. Yes, my mum has pointed out at least three times that my easyJet bag is blue and my Ryanair bag is orange and yes, I should have done it the other way round.
I Am A Polar Bear 