I have risen to the challenge of travelling light.
For the 2019 extravaganza, Companion and I travelled on a seven-day global pass with (just!) a roller bag each, a five litre cool bag each, food and wine each for up to 24 hours, and a spare collapsable rucksack for any extra bits (mostly Pálinka). We used left-luggage facilities in Berlin and Brussels for the two occasions where we didn’t just dump stuff in accommodation before doing anything else. For all other journeys, we travelled pretty much point-to-point so what we were carrying was a minor consideration.
This time, I decided I wasn’t going to spend time looking for left-luggage facilities if I found myself between trains looking for something to do, so a roller bag is not an option. I spent weeks agonising over what size bag I’d need and, once I finally thought I might have got a grasp on that, what colour it should be. And then I saw another bag. It was a surprising rabbit hole that I wouldn’t have thought existed.
Decathlon’s choice of bags was a bit disappointing and more geared towards people who want to trudge up mountains in the wet rather than someone who might need to spend an hour or two between trains taking photographs of a finger puppet. I did consider a North Face Borealis (bright yellow) until I read people describing its claim to be ‘water resistant’ as optimistic at best, then an Eastpak — at least two mothers have vouched for their longevity — until I decided they seemed more geared towards going to work than Extreme Urban Puppetry.
After much deliberating even more tedious than you can possibly imagine, I bought a 5.11 Tactical bag from a shop in Toulouse.
Let us be clear from quite early on: a grown man travelling around Europe taking blurry photographs of a Peruvian finger puppet is, broadly speaking, not what one would describe as being within their target demographic. Nonetheless, I gave at least momentary thought to whether I would ever need to attach a gas-mask holder or Mace pouch, and if so, whether it would influence my choice of colour, before realising that, well — no. Disappointed that there are apparently no Molle-equipped wine coolers, cool bags or cutlery pouches — a gap in the market waiting to be exploited — I concluded I probably didn’t need a bag to which I could attach more bags.
I therefore went for a 32 litre bag over the slightly larger 37 litre one with tactical webbing (oh my god how much I want some tactical webbing) and other bits. The smaller bag is also lighter – a very important consideration.
My bag did not come with a blue water pistol.
All the bag names on the web site are in big American shouty capitals, so I was extra happy to find one that had shouty capitals and a letter missing in its name, the COVRT18 2.0, in the most covrt and tctical colo(u)r I could find: Grenade. This coordinates best with my coat, and was also a cheaper option from some stores. Of the other colour variants, the black one looks nice but I’d worry about getting the white interior dirty, the “storm” variant would get dirty on the outside quickly, and I didn’t care particularly for “coyote”. As I said, I’m not really within their target demographic.
The 18 in COVRT18 indicates that you should be able to pack enough into it to survive for the first 18 hours of an apocalypse before you’re forced to start feasting on nuts and berries and looking for somewhere to wash your pants. I don’t know what other people take when they’re expecting an apocalypse but with careful packing I’ve got:
- four teeshirts
- four pairs of socks
- four pairs of underwear
- a work hoodie
- a jumper
- pyjama shorts
- a sleeping teeshirt
- some loose harem-pant-type trousers for not sitting around in a pair of jeans
- a pair of slippers (just because it’s potentially Armageddon doesn’t mean one has to be uncomfortable)
- (a growing collection of) gloves and a beanie hat
- my mobile classroom
- the Alexanderhoeve cool bag from the Benelux mini-adventure
- toiletries
- a micro-fibre towel
- an Interrail map
- a coat
- a hat
With careful mastery of the skivvy roll, I appear to have managed to fit everything into my 32 litre bag, which is something of an achievement. The bag comes with a rear laptop compartment which will also take a hydration pouch (for wine, obviously) into which conveniently fits the Alexanderhoeve back when it’s not in use. Additionally, I wear a fifth day’s skivvy roll along with a jumper.
The slippers fit into the CCW (concealed comfy wear) compartment and if I’m not actually wearing the coat or hat, it’ll fit into the ‘shove-it’ compartment at the front. I think, all in all, I made a good choice. The bag is very solid and will hopefully put up with many more years of abuse.
For those interested in this kind of thing, there is a much more in-depth review over here.
