A Day Trip with Peak Design Everyday Bags – Review

Bag Review

by Florian MilzJuly 13^th, 2021

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Peak Design makes very stylish and high-quality bags for creatives. From camera bags to travel bags (and also photo tripods, camera straps, and accessories), Peak Design not only uses a very innovative approach but also creates all their products with a very responsible mindset towards humans and the planet. I recently used some Peak Design Everyday bags on a trip and want to share my experience with you.

Camera bags come in a lot of different shapes and sizes with varying degrees of features and styles. Having used a lot of different bags in my past, I was extremely surprised when I decided to try the Peak Design Everyday Backpack for my photo gear.

I had seen quite a few people around me carrying and swearing by the bag but I wasn’t sold on the design initially. One thing that I most often found frustrating with bags was that they were usually exclusively designed ONLY for camera gear or ONLY for other stuff (with no padding for camera gear).

Recently, after seeing many COVID-related restrictions being loosened or lifted, my girlfriend and I decided to treat ourselves to a night in a fancy hotel. This was a great opportunity to try and use only Peak Design bags on this trip. 

Full Disclosure: Peak Design provided us with these bags at no cost. However, there were no strings attached, so everything you read here is my own honest opinion about these bags.

The Bags of Choice

For my camera gear and personal belongings, I used the Everyday Backpack 30L. My girlfriend packed her belongings into the Everyday Tote and we both put our clothes and the rest of our stuff into the Travel Duffel bag 35L. 

In addition to those three bags, we also brought a Tech Pouch for our charging and other small electronic needs and a Wash Pouch for toiletries. For further organizing our clothes inside the Travel Duffel, we used one small and one medium Packing Cube.

All About Organization

Packing stuff into a bag is an easy task but Peak Design is giving its customers plenty of ways to stay organized.

Every Peak Design bag has lots, and I mean LOTS, of compartments to put smaller items into. Being camera-centric, there are compartments for batteries, memory cards, cables, filters, and much more. And even when you don’t carry your camera gear with you, you can still use these pockets to organize your personal stuff.

The Everyday Backpack

The Everyday Backpack V1 20L was actually my very first Peak Design bag that I bought myself in 2018. For this trip, I used the Everyday Backpack V2 30L. 

The backpack is basically a large shell that is accessible from both sides and can be customized with dividers that stay in place with Velcro. This lets me really easily create compartments for camera gear and personal things. The fact that I can easily switch the bag layout is the feature that I love the most about this bag.

In typical Peak Design fashion, there are many small pockets for filters, batteries, memory cards, cables, etc. to make it easy to stay organized. One of the side pockets also (not coincidentally) perfectly fits the Peak Design Travel Tripod which can also be secured with the included straps that are hidden away inside the pockets.

If you are not a fan of camera straps (like me), then the Peak Design Capture Clip might be interesting to you. You can fasten the clip on one of the shoulder straps and the ARCA SWISS baseplate clips into place.

Peak Design has made a great in-depth video explaining EVERY feature of the Peak Design Everyday Backpack:

The Everyday Tote

To be perfectly honest, my girlfriend is not a filmmaker or photographer so I let her use the bag as a regular handbag and I added some of my smaller photo gear into the mix. 

There are, again, many compartments for camera (and personal) accessories. Almost all of the pockets are protected by zippers and/or magnets. This helps to keep things from accidentally falling out of the compartments when not zipped and also makes it hard for pickpockets to get to your stuff.

My girlfriend soon found out though that the combination of the bag being rather deep and the bag opening being a bit too narrow, it was hard to easily get the camera inside and out of the bag quickly.

Here is another great in-depth video explaining EVERY feature of the Peak Design Everyday Tote:

The Travel Duffel bag 35L

I love duffel bags for their stylish look. The Peak Design Travel Duffel bag 35L is a great size for a one- or two-day trip for two people. The size of the bag is great for packing all the necessities into it but also not being too heavy to carry (since it doesn’t have wheels). 

Inside the Travel Duffel, we used Packing Cubes for further organizing our clothes. One medium Packing Cube was used for T-Shirts and tops and one small Packing Cube was perfect for our underwear. The Packing Cubes are divided into two compartments with separate zippers – we used one for clean and one for dirty laundry.

There are some small pockets for organizing some smaller stuff on the inside of the bag and there are also pockets on the long sides of the bag for quick access to documents.

And another great in-depth video explaining EVERY feature of the Peak Design Travel Duffel 35L:

The Peak Design Ecosystem

You can easily say that Peak Design is the Apple of camera bags. This gets more and more apparent as soon as you use two or more Peak Design products. 

There is the anchor link quick-release system for interfacing straps with cameras and other accessories and there is a CordHook loop system that you can find on the outside of every bag that will let you attach straps to expand the storage capabilities even further.

Lifetime Warranty

Peak Design offers a lifetime warranty for all of its products. This commitment shows how forward-thinking this company designs and creates its bags. 

Peak Design’s mission statement reads:

• Make the best things
• Succeed at the expense of nobody
• Treat our customers as peers
• Offset our environmental impact
• Use our voice to inspire positive change
• Seek happiness over growth

Personal Thoughts

I personally love what Peak Design is doing, design-wise and from an environmental point of view. The bags are not cheap but they are definitely not cheaply made. And should there be any issue with quality, the lifetime warranty will help you out. A lot of thought has gone into those bags and you notice right away after using their products for a little while. I just wish they made roller-style Travel bags as well (I hope you’re reading this, Peak Design ;) ).

Are you a proud owner of any Peak Design bag or product? What’s your (least) favorite feature of the bags? Have you used the Peak Design Travel Tripod? I’m very curious about your experiences with any Peak Design product so feel free to let me know in the comments below!