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Peak Design Travel Duffel 35L Review
Cost: $129.95
Capacity: 35 liters
Dimensions: 22” x 14” x 10” (56 x 35 x 26 cm)
Style: Duffel Bag
Weight: 2.0 lbs (0.9 kg)
Laptop: No
Materials: 400D Nylon Canvas, 900D Polyester, Leather Accents, Aluminum Hardware
Origin: Manufactured in Vietnam
This is my second review of a bag by Peak Designs. And I’m just as impressed with the Travel Duffel, as I was with the Travel Backpack. This thing is a simple, classic duffel bag, that’s well designed, and made with great materials. With a HUGE interior compartment.
Materials, Colors, and Size
Material
The materials on the duffel are identical to the travel backpack. The Main fabric is a thick 400 denier nylon treated with DWR (Durable Water Repellant). Giving it a rough, plasticy feel, and making it water resistant, but not completely water-proof. The bottom fabric is a much thicker 900 denier, treated with a much thicker waterproofing material.
The Travel Duffel comes in Heather Green, like I have here, or a classic black color if you want something more low-key. I opted for the green, I think it gives the bag a lot of personality without being over the top,
Zippers and Hardware
For the zippers on the exterior they use a large #10 and #8 waterproof zippers from a company called ZOOM. They’re well-made with all metal construction and custom pull tabs. They may or may not be as good as YKK brand zips, but I tend to trust Peak Designs in terms of quality. Considering the attention to detail, and quality materials they use, for every piece of hardware on this bag.
The rest of the hardware is way better than you see in most travel bags. The hooks on the carry handles are custom aluminum, with fiberglass reinforced nylon hooks for the shoulder strap. The fiberglass hooks aren’t as strong as the metal ones, but PD claims they work better with the adjustable nylon shoulder strap. I think they should have just gone all aluminum to avoid possible breakage issues.
The green version here, has leather carry straps and accent tabs. If you want a vegan option, the black version of the duffel doesn’t use any leather.
Another interesting feature is a aluminum rod that runs along the side on either end of the bag. This helps the bag keep its form, so it doesn’t collapse in on itself.
Security System
The security on this bag is minimal. You can lock the main zippers together with the rubber pull-tab. Unclip it from one side, run it through the ring, and attach it back to itself. Or you can use a standard TSA flex lock.
The side pockets can be secured, by attaching the two side zipper pulls together with a lock. Or a fabric loop sews near the top zipper pull.
There is a classic Peak Design locking mechanism on the side zip. You feed the zipper pull down through a hole in the pocket, and attach it over a plastic toggle on the inside of the bag. It technically works, but in practice, I found this to be so difficult and time consuming that it’s not even worth it.
A better solution to the toggle lock is to use these mini carabiners. The Micro lock by Nite-Ize are a fantastic quick-clip option I use all the time for additional security. It has two clips, and turn the center lever to lock it into place.
These come in a bunch of colors and work great for bags like this. You can leave one end attached to the loop, and then just clip the other end and lock it into place.
Size & Dimensions on Peak Design Travel Duffel
Like all bags I review on this channel, the dimensions of the Peak Design Travel Duffel are carry on friendly for most airlines (Airline carry on size chart). With a length of 22”, width of 14” and a height of 10.
This material on this bag stiff, and the aluminum bar securing the carry handles help keep the bags form. The height of 10” is slightly large, but the bag squishes down easily from the top, as long as it’s not over-packed too much.
External Components
The external components on the Peak Design Travel Duffel consist of a cross-body shoulder strap, and top handle carry, which are both detachable, as well as several side pockets.
Each side has a large organizational compartment, and a slash pocket. The slash pockets are pretty large, and don’t have any further interior pockets.
The large side compartments are mostly the same. One side has 2 rubber mesh dividers, and a hidden luggage tag pocket. While the other side has 3 rubber mesh dividers.
These compartments stick out a few inches from the bag. But how much you can fit in here really depends on what you have in the main compartment.
You can easily fit quite a bit in here with the bag empty. But once you start packing the inside your capacity is greatly reduced.
Carry Options
The shoulder strap on the Peak Design Travel Duffel is an 1 and 3/4 nylon seat belt style strap, that tapers down to a leather carry handle. The handles are soft, but there isn’t much padding. To make carrying easier the handles connect together with a magnet. But in practice, I found the magnets aren’t really strong enough to hold the handles together.
The shoulder strap is also a thin nylon strap, slightly thinner than the carry handles at about 1 ¼” thick. The padding is similar to the straps on the Travel Backpack, decently long and wide, but they could use slightly more padding to increase the carry comfort.
Peak Design Travel Duffel Carry Comfort
There are a few ways to carry this bag which require you to move the attachment points on the shoulder strap and the top handles. To carry with the shoulder strap, you unclip the aluminum hooks on the top carry handles , which I found the be really tight.
And then you have a few options to configure the strap for the shoulder carry. You can attach it at the ends and carry it like a normal duffel. Adjust the strap using these two adjustors on the end. The padding on the strap actually stays nicely in place because Its attached to the strap.
The bag can be a little blocky on your hip this way. You can also move the shoulder straps to attach offset on the side loops. Or, I found the most comfortable way to carry the bag is to just attach them both on the same side.
Backpack Carry
You’re going to need to attach the top carry handles to wear the Peak Design Travel Duffel as a backpack. You remove the shoulder strap and attach the top carry handles to the fabric loops on the end of the bag, and to one loop on the side.
This technically works to carry the bag, and it might work in a pinch. But it’s really not very comfortable. The straps aren’t adjustable, and they barely have any padding. I don’t have much weight in the bag in the picture, and the straps are already digging into my shoulders. It’s really just not comfortable.
Interior Components and Design
The main draw on this bag, is the huge interior compartment. The bag opens from the top with one long zipper running the length of the duffel.
The interior is pretty simple. With only 2 small zippered rubber mesh pockets, and a couple fabric hooks for attaching camera cubes, if you use the bag for photography gear.
The Travel Duffel is designed to store Peak Designs packing cubes. But similar to the Travel Backpack, I found that this set of much less expensive set of 3 Gonex packing cubes also work great for packing this bag.
Summary of Peak Design Travel Duffel
Pros
My favorite things about the Peak Design Travel Duffel is the materials and design. They keep the tradition of the classic duffel bag style by focusing the bag around a large-volume main compartment but updated with modern materials. While at the same time, still provide good organization, with minimally distracting exterior and interior pockets.
- Materials and design
- Huge interior compartment
- Great, minimally distracting organization
Cons
My main critique on this bag is the carry system. With a bag as large as this, especially one that’s designed to hold heavy camera equipment, you really need a comfortable carry system. I like that the padding on the shoulder strap stays in place, but it could be wider, and the padding really needs to be much thicker.
The leather carry handles look great (black color has vegan option). But they’re firm, not very thick, and don’t have much padding. And the carry handles just don’t work as backpack straps. It’s not enough to attach fabric loops to the end of the bag and claim you can now carry the bag as a backpack.
They really need to modify the design on the straps or provide a different strap that works better for backpack carry, like they have for camera carry.
- Backpack straps don’t work well to carry bag
- Magnets on handles and side flap aren’t very strong
- Cross-shoulder strap padding should be thicker
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