It looks like any large backpack with enough room to fit a weekend’s worth of gear and supplies. What it makes the Bellroy Venture Travel Pack special, though, is that it actually hides a packable bag inside one of its compartments, allowing you to expand its capacity by over 50 percent, making it a viable bag for travel.
That’s right, it combines two bags in one: a backpack and a zippered tote bag. You can carry the tote bag separately or mount it in front of the backpack, essentially giving you a bigger pack fit for taking with you on your flights.
The Bellroy Venture Travel Pack is a 26L backpack with a large zippered main compartment that fully opens flat just like a suitcase, making it easy to pack and unpack your gear without having to dig through a deep container. Inside, it comes with compression straps to flatten and secure the contents, while zippered pockets on the opening flap allows you to organize small gear. At the back of the main compartment is a padded sleeve sized to hold laptops up to 16 inches, along with a slip pocket for any documents you want to keep inside the bag.
Inside its own compartment is a 15L zippered tote bag that you can pull out when you end up having more stuff than will fit in the backpack, essentially expanding your bag capacity to 41L. We think it’s great for use with stuff you want to be able to take out in a jiffy, sparing you from having to open the main compartment just to grab a few snacks while waiting for your flight to start boarding. It can be really useful inside the plane, too, since you can put the backpack in the overhead bin and keep the tote by your side, ready to access any contents you want to use during the flight.
The Bellroy Venture Travel Pack has an exterior compartment they’re calling a “Brain Pocket” that sits on top, which is designed to hold small items you want to keep within easy reach, as well as an RFID-blocking pocket sized to hold your passport and any other sensitive items. There’s also a large zippered pocket for a water bottle (it looks like it can fit that massive Stanley or the knockoff Yeti version) and a hidden side pocket with an interior key hook, in case you don’t want to keep your keys in your pocket (hey, they fall off sometimes).
Like many travel backpacks, you can use this as a carry-on with a separate suitcase as your check-in bag, complete with a passthrough strap for securing it to the telescoping handle of your luggage while you’re on the go. Other features include fitted shoulder straps, an adjustable sternum strap for better distributing heavy loads, a top-grab handle, water-resistant element-coated nylon construction, and an internal slot for stashing an Apple AirTag to let you find your luggage in the event that it gets lost.
The Bellroy Venture Travel Pack is available now, priced at $329.