I've been obsessing about backpacks for a while since my current Czech military style backpack is lacking for travel/college use I wanna see what...

>vapid consumer
yes
>look moronic abroad and an obvious target
calm down anthony bourdain, I've been to multiple countries, I get you're a badass and probably eat bat with the locals in wuhan while carrying only 10usd living in a hostel and shitting your brains out but some of us like having nice things

I’m a hikegay turned backpacker and I’ve kind of backed into having pretty serious brand loyalty to Osprey at this point. I personally mostly use a Farpoint 40 for travel, with an ultralight day pack in addition as a personal item or rolled up inside my backpack to be used around town wherever I’m going. I’m convinced that it’s the absolute perfect travel backpack. However, you mention school, and I don’t think it’s well suited for this at all. I’m personally of the school of thought that it’s best to have a specialized piece of gear for every application, but I totally understand that not everyone has the space or budget for that approach.

In the end, bags are somewhat like clothes in that they fit everyone differently. What works for me may not work for you. Specifically for a travel bag, I’d be concerned about two main things AFTER confirming that the bag fits you comfortably and has whatever checklist features you consider non-negotiable.

1) build quality and warranty: It really helps to know that your gear is probably never going to blow up or stop working on you. It helps even more to know that if it does, it’ll be easy to sort out a replacement.

2) internal volume vs. dimensions: For traveling, more = better, but you want to make sure that the external dimensions of your bag fit the maximum space provided by the most restrictive airline you’re likely to fly on. 38-40 liters is likely to be a hard limit on this. For a school bag, you’ll almost certainly want something smaller.

At the end of the day, you’re going to need to just go try some things on and see what you like. None of us are going to have meaningful advice that goes beyond “works/doesn’t work for me” type anecdotes and secondhand opinions on brand image.

thanks for the suggestion and thoughts, I do like the farpoint and have seen it in person, but it does fit what I think of osprey which is, not made to be easy to access on short notice. and yeah I know my bag has to be under the carryon limit but you need a really big bag for that, like 45+ L. I more wanted to see if there were certain brands people like or didn't like or if anyone could talk to the bags I was thinking of getting, I know it's a personal choice, for me the chasm and the farpoint are the only bags I've tried IRL since canada is kinda shit for retail product availability.

Farpoint for men, Fairview for women.