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Osprey Porter 46 Specs
Cost: $140
Capacity: 46 liters
Dimensions: 22” x 14” x 11” (56 x 36 x 28 cm)
Style: Duffel Bag
Weight: 3.4 lbs (1.5 kg)
Laptop: 15.6”
Materials: 420D Nylon Packcloth, 420D Ripstop Nylon, YKK Zippers
Origin: Manufactured in Vietnam
How to Pack the Osprey Porter 46
The Osprey Porter 46 is a max-sized travel backpack, capable of being packed too full to fit in the overhead. My goal with this post is to pack the bag with as much stuff as I can get in it to demonstrate the max capacity, then repack it to show you a more reasonable amount of gear for this bag.
Packing List
I’ll start by packing the Osprey Porter 46 with the full set of gear in the picture above you can see what the bag looks like completely full. Experienced packers might balk at this packing list (3 long sleeve shirts, whaaaa…) but my goal is to pack it as full as possible to demonstrate the capacity. Here is the complete list of gear I’ll be packing the bag:
Clothes
Long-sleeve button-up shirts (3)
– Wool and Prince Button Up Oxford
– Hardvark Everyday Shirt
Patagonia mid-weight crew top (2)
Patagonia mid-weight bottoms (1)
Outlier New Ways Shorts (1)
T-Shirts (6)
– Patagonia Cool Trail (2)
– Generic poly-blend undershirts (4)
Underwear (6)
Socks (4)
– Darn Tough
– Smartwool
Puffy Jacket (1)
– Arc’teryx Atom LT
Rain Jacket (1)
– Outdoor Research Helium ii
Pants (3)
– Cotton Jeans (1)
– Synthetic Eddie Bauer Guide Pants (2)
Lems Nine2Five Shoes
Electronics
CARD 4-Pro Travel Adapter
Dell Inspiron 15” Laptop
Google Pixel 2 Phone
Anker PowerCore 10000 PD Redux
USB-C Cable 6ft.
Nite-Ize Cord Tie
Samsung Ear Buds
Misc. Gear
Matador Freefly Packable Daypack
Vapur 1L Collapsible Water Bottle
Chums Surfshort Wallet
Travel Utensils
Bond Travel Wallet
Flex Lock
Passport
Notebook
Pen and Pencil
Sunglasses
Toiletries:
Sea To Summit Toiletry Kit Small
Humangear GoTubb 0.5 oz. (1)
Eagle Creek Silicone Liquid Tube (1)
Matador Flat Pak Soap Case
Hand Sanitizer
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Small Plastic Unbreakable Comb
Fingernail Clippers
Razor
Small First-Aid Kit
Packing The Osprey Porter 46
The interior compartment of the Porter 46 is huge and easy to pack. You don’t have to use packing cubes, but I find they help a lot with organization. I went a little heavy on the cubes, using two different sets here. Most of my clothes are in these 4 cubes, except for the two jackets. Pants, long sleeve shirts and thermal layers are in two medium compression cubes. T-shirts are in the smaller blue mesh cube, and socks and underwear in the Small cube.
Packing cubes fit perfectly in the bag – 5
The main cubes I used were two Eagle Creek Medium Specter Tech Compression Cubes. They work great because they’re lightweight and allow you to compress your gear. They measure about 14” x 10” x 3” (36 x 25 8 cm) and fit almost perfectly in the bottom of the main compartment. However, any cubes of the same dimensions will fit in here fine.
You have a lot of options for packing the second layer of the Osprey Porter 46. You can kind of just Tetris your gear in here as you see fit. For this layer I packed a Medium Gonex Compression Cube (12” x 9” x 3.5 / 30 x 23 x 9 cm) with my T-shirts, and a second Eagle Creek Small Compression Cube with my socks and underwear. The toiletry kit, rain jacket and Matador Freefly16 snuggle nicely in the side.
There isn’t much room for shoes now. But if you squish the gear down toward the bottom of the pack you can manage to squeeze in a slim pair in the top of the bag. I have the Lems Nine2Five shoes which pack down pretty small. Finish off the main compartment with a puffy jacket, if it’s small enough it will fit in almost any extra gaps you have left over.
The rest of the small items now have plenty of room to fit in the top organizational pockets. My sunglasses and phone go in the top slash pocket, and the travel wallet in back slash pocket. The rest of the electronics, chargers and cords all fit nicely in the pockets in the main top compartment. There are enough pockets and dividers in here that you don’t need to worry about bringing an extra tech-organizer pouch with this bag.
Carry Comfort Osprey Porter 46
It’s worth mentioning that if you fill the Porter 46 this full, you probably can’t take it as a carry-on. Except for budget airlines, the max-carry on limit is usually around 22” x 14” x 9 (56 x 36 x 23 cm). The bag as I have it here is about 11” wide. However, later in I’ll take enough gear out so you can fit it in an overhead, this will be a more reasonable amount of gear for this pack.
However, this bag is quite heavy, and the carry comfort isn’t great with this much weight. The Porter 46 doesn’t have very thick backpack straps or hip belts, the back of the pack is flat with no air ventilation. The top load adjustors help with weight distribution, but it will get uncomfortable if you plan on carrying it fully packed for too long.
Slimmed Down Packing List
There are a few issues with packing the bag this full. It’s very heavy, too large to fit in the overhead, and you have no room for snacks or souvenirs. However, it’s not too difficult to get this bag to fit in the overhead. The compression straps are great and will let me compress this pack a ton if I just remove a few of the bulky items from my original packing list.
I kept the non-clothes items the same in this demo because toiletries and electronics aren’t as easy to remove as bulky clothes. I ditched the largest bulkiest gear first: shoes, one long sleeve shirt, thermal undershirt, jeans, and a pair of underwear and socks.
Extra clothes add a ton of weight and volume and the gear I removed is unnecessary. Don’t bring a second pair of shoes if you can help it, and if you do wear your bulkiest pair and pack the other one. Same goes for jeans, wear them on the plane if you have a pair and pack your smaller pants.
I didn’t really need a third dress shirt here. The other two I have are merino wool anyway and can be worn over and over, a third shirt is just overkill. Same goes for socks and underwear, a few pairs of synthetic or merino wool items here can be warn and washed over and over while you travel.
Packing the Slimmer Osprey Porter 46
My removing that gear, I was able to reconfigure the clothes into one fewer packing cube. I took the t-shirts out of the Gonex cube and repacked the gear into the Medium Eagle Creek Compression cubes. And with those bulky shoes now out of the picture, I have a ton of extra room in the main compartment.
The pack is now quite a bit smaller and lighter. The compression straps on this bag are solid and really let you squish it down. With all this gear removed I am now able to compress it down to a 9” (23 cm) width, small enough to be the max carry-on size for many airlines. It also now weights 18.8 lbs. (8.5 kg.), down about 5 lbs. from what the bag was previously. This is a ton of weight and is going to make a huge difference is carry comfort.
Carry Comfort on Slimmer Pack
This bag is noticeably more comfortable with less gear. The fit of the shoulder straps and hip belt is obviously going to be the same, but I can feel a major difference in the wight on my shoulders. Brining the weight closer to your back too has a noticeable effect. Having your pack weight closer to your center of gravity puts less strain on your back.
Summary
The Osprey Porter 46 is a solid travel backpack with great interior organization. The backpack carry system isn’t great for a pack of this size, and it’s even worse if you overpack the bag. This pack also gets a lot of criticism for being too wide to fit as a carry on. However, this is only true if you overpack. A lot of the problems with dimensions and carry comfort on the Porter 46 can be alleviated by simply packing the bag with a little less stuff.
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