Like any good gear nut with hyper-specific piece of outerwear and footwear for any given scenario, I have a lot of bags. The idea of just owning one or two has never made sense to me—some trips, for example, require a roller, others a duffel. And yet, somehow, I've found myself in situations where the bags I've brought can't adequately carry everything I want to bring with me on my trip. Enter the packable backpack, a bag that can fold down to sizes small enough to fit in your luggage, other bacpacks, even a pocket, when not in use. Using one of these can ensure you're never without some extra cargo carrying capabilities.
We surveyed the options offered by outdoor brands we know and trust to pick out and pick apart the best packable backpacks out there. Some options tout ultra low weight in a minimal design, while others offer a near full list of features as their non-packable counterparts. Unsurprisingly, the level of packability tends to scale with how much cargo space each pack offers in total, but there are of course exceptions to that rule.
Field Mag’s Top Picks for Packable Backpacks
- Best Overall Packable Backpack: Mystery Ranch In and Out 25
- Best Ultralight: Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Pack 30
- Best for Travel: Matador Freefly16
- Best for Every Day Carry: Patagonia Terravia Tote Pack 24L
- Most Durable: Roadrunner Comrad
- Most Compact: Sea-to-Summit Ultra Sil Day Pack
- Best for Cycling: Outershell Magic Musette
About the Packability Score
Though simple in approach, I generated a simple score for each backpack by dividing the total liters of storage volume by its weight in ounces. Since some of these packs can measure slightly amorphous in dimension once packed into a zip pocket or provided stuffsack, this score seemed more useful than trying to approximate the stowed carry size of each pack. Simply put, the higher the score, the higher the ratio of cargo-volume-to-carry weight.