First up, are the mummy & daddy bags. Marcelle thought she had seen the last of backpacking when her old Berghaus rucksack went mouldy and had to be chucked out a couple of years ago. She was delighted to see a Tactical 5.11(www.511tactical.com) 50 litre backpack with her name written on it! We bought two. They were £100 and the material, zips and build quality seem good value for money.
This company makes special ops style stuff and their website seems to sell knives and things to kill people with, so I was up for buying one of their bags. After all, we are travelling to the wilds of Mongolia...
The bag has a shed load of zips, pockets and space to attach pouches via a molle system, as well as a laptop pocket. It is also very comfortable to wear. Seen also in the photo is a rucksack cover (for heavy rainfall and protecting the bag from light fingers if it is up on top of a jeep/camel/luggage rack) and a reusable John Lewis shopping bag (no contributing to China's plastic bag rubbish mountains then...).
We looked everywhere for a backpack for Maisie. They were either too big, or too cheaply made. In the end, I was back in Bristol recently, and went in to see the friendly people in Nomad (nomadtravel.co.uk). We looked at several of the backpacks designed for children and came up with this 15 litre Lowe Alpine number.
We aren't planning for her to carry her own clothes, but she will take along whatever she needs to amuse her on the trip. This little beauty has a large main compartment, a smaller compartment for pens and paper and a third, smaller pocket on the front. Best of all, Maisie has found the hole for her iPod earphones to thread through! I was a little disappointed about a lack of elasticated side pockets for a flask. Her comments about it so far are 'comfy' and 'good colours'.
Let's see if it stays comfy for six weeks...
In the same shop I also saw a backpack which was Harry sized. The Berghaus 8 litre 'Hands Off!' is touted as a starter backpack and it is a miniaturised version of an adults day pack. It's just the right size to fit in a couple of superheroes, a bag of marbles and some cars. It only has one compartment, but I think with little children, this is no bad thing.
Somehow, I think it's small size and therefore low weight will still be a bone of contention for the boy child, who complains when even carrying his pyjamas up to bed. Luckily it will stow in the top or clip to the side of one of our bags when the moaning starts...
As Marcelle will attest, I have a lot of bags. I love bags and boxes and empty black notebooks. I think it will be great to get old and be able to tinker around in a shed.
Try as I might, none of the bags I had were small enough to be worn with a backpack or large enough to hold passports, a book and a camera. I had looked at some of the Tactical 5.11 bags and some Maxpedition ones, but they had ammo holsters for goodness sake. I didn't fancy going through Russia looking like an Alabama gun nut.
So instead I went as pretentious as I could and bought a Lomography 'Sidekick' (www.lomography.com). It's some kind of retro-fashonista-manbag thing that you'd find on a dreadful website like urban outfitters or cool hunting, but like I said, I like bags...
This one is made from pretty rough looking canvas, semi padded for camera protection and has more pouches than a troop of kangaroos. The front bit comes off so you can hold it like one of those post modern men's purses. Especially useful in a yurt.
We looked everywhere for a backpack for Maisie. They were either too big, or too cheaply made. In the end, I was back in Bristol recently, and went in to see the friendly people in Nomad (nomadtravel.co.uk). We looked at several of the backpacks designed for children and came up with this 15 litre Lowe Alpine number.We aren't planning for her to carry her own clothes, but she will take along whatever she needs to amuse her on the trip. This little beauty has a large main compartment, a smaller compartment for pens and paper and a third, smaller pocket on the front. Best of all, Maisie has found the hole for her iPod earphones to thread through! I was a little disappointed about a lack of elasticated side pockets for a flask. Her comments about it so far are 'comfy' and 'good colours'.
Let's see if it stays comfy for six weeks...
In the same shop I also saw a backpack which was Harry sized. The Berghaus 8 litre 'Hands Off!' is touted as a starter backpack and it is a miniaturised version of an adults day pack. It's just the right size to fit in a couple of superheroes, a bag of marbles and some cars. It only has one compartment, but I think with little children, this is no bad thing.Somehow, I think it's small size and therefore low weight will still be a bone of contention for the boy child, who complains when even carrying his pyjamas up to bed. Luckily it will stow in the top or clip to the side of one of our bags when the moaning starts...
As Marcelle will attest, I have a lot of bags. I love bags and boxes and empty black notebooks. I think it will be great to get old and be able to tinker around in a shed.
Try as I might, none of the bags I had were small enough to be worn with a backpack or large enough to hold passports, a book and a camera. I had looked at some of the Tactical 5.11 bags and some Maxpedition ones, but they had ammo holsters for goodness sake. I didn't fancy going through Russia looking like an Alabama gun nut.
So instead I went as pretentious as I could and bought a Lomography 'Sidekick' (www.lomography.com). It's some kind of retro-fashonista-manbag thing that you'd find on a dreadful website like urban outfitters or cool hunting, but like I said, I like bags...
This one is made from pretty rough looking canvas, semi padded for camera protection and has more pouches than a troop of kangaroos. The front bit comes off so you can hold it like one of those post modern men's purses. Especially useful in a yurt.
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