Depending on the type of trip we are taking, we sometimes prefer to use a backpack for air travel. Many times we will carry that backpack onboard the flight as a carry-on. But for long haul flights, we sometimes choose to check our backpacks onto the airplane. But travel backpacks are very different than suitcases or other standard luggage that is checked on an airplane because they aren’t exactly designed to hold up in the same way. And there are all those important fitting straps hanging off your backpack! The last thing you need is for an important strap to tear up or a clip to be broken during transit. Over the years of planning trips and using our checking our backpacks on airplanes, we have come to find out some essential tips for when you check your travel backpack. Here are our top 5 tips for checking your travel backpack at the airport.
1. Secure All Your Hanging Straps on Your Travel Backpack
A good travel backpack has a lot of straps. And they are all quite important, as we discussed in our post “how to fit your travel backpack.” So one thing to make sure of before passing your bags over to be checked by the airlines is to make sure there are no loose straps.
This will not only help keep your bag from getting stuck in the belts, but it will keep from tearing the straps up in the process! It also helps maintain the length of your straps when you pick up your pack at the baggage claim, so you don’t have to do as much readjusting.
Liz has really enjoyed having her Mountainsmith Backpack, and I travel with my Mountainsmith Lariat 65. Our backpacks are important pieces of equipment that need to fit properly for our health, so the last thing we want is for our straps to be ruined.
2. Tie Your Travel Backpack Shoulder Straps Together
This is a tip that a lot of people may overlook, but to me, this is an extremely important tip when checking your travel backpack. Let’s be honest, the crews in the back couldn’t care less about your bags. And they are used to moving mostly typical travel luggage, with handles and wheels. But backpacks are unique.
Backpacks have a lot of hanging straps, including the two critical suspension straps for your shoulders. And as we know, travel backpacks are very important pieces of equipment… that should be handled with care!
I like to try and make their job a bit easier (and protect my travel backpack) by giving them one main strap to hold on to, rather than two. This helps them move my pack to where it needs to go. I have seen that by doing this it keeps my strap at the length that I want them. That way once I get my bag at the baggage claim, I can get it and go and not have to go through a full-on adjustment of straps. This helps me out in case I might have to run to my next connection or mode of transportation.
3. Bring Electronics & Power Cords With You in Your Carry-On
Never check your electronics OR power cords. But sometimes at the airport, we may have to rush to check our bags and might forget about our electronics in our backpacks until the last minute. So having easy access to our main compartment is essential in getting our carry-on ready to travel. The u-shape design on our packs makes this so easy.
At first, we were unsure about this design, but we soon come to love it because it is much easier to access our items throughout the bag and not mess up our packing! Also, our Mounatainsmith Scream 25 collapsible bag makes for a great carry-on bag. We can easily pull it out of the big backpack and stuff it with our electronics to take on the plane with us.
4. Buckle Your Waist Strap Around Your Backpack to Secure It for Air Travel
This tip is one we had to learn the hard way. During a prior trip, we didn’t have the waist straps secure by wrapping it around the main part of the pack. We arrived at the baggage claim with a missing snap. This made the critical waist strap on the backpack useless.
Since then, we have been making sure that our waist straps are secure by latching them around to the main pack. Extremely important!
5. Secure All Zippers and Be Sure Important Items are Deep Inside the Big Compartment
Make sure that you do not have anything valuable (or simply important) in the top pouch our the outside pouch of your pack. This will at least make it a little bit harder for anyone to get it out of your bag.
Also, make sure zippers are tucked under zipper hangover liner. If you have double zippers to a compartment, make sure they are all the way on one side & stuffed into the corner edge of the zipper liner — this will help keep zippers from being snagged and pulled open, with your contents falling out!
Next time you travel with your pack and are thinking about checking it, make sure you use these tips to ensure you arrive at your destination with your pack and all of your straps.
Being Mountainsmith users and fans for years, we were ecstatic to begin working with them. However, while we may receive occasionally free products to test and review, all opinions are strictly our own.
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I prefer to put my pack inside a duffle. Doesn’t have to be a super heavy-duty gym bag type. I actually made my own from rip-stop polyester that’s just a little heavier than a typical stuff-sack. a simple 1-compartment bag with a long zipper closure and a pair of straps that wrap around the bottom. Keeps all the straps & buckles contained, and gives the baggage handlers a more familiar type package to handle. When I get to my destination I unzip the duffle and stuff it to the bottom of the pack’s main compartment. when fully wadded up, it takes up less space than a t-shirt.
Thanks for reading Sean, and for the comment! Wow – that’s really creative of you to do that. Cheers & happy travels!
– Liz
What size Duffel bag did you buy for a full size pack?
Hi Bob.
Our backpacks are 55 liters. Perfect size for us!
Hi, I would like to know whether back packs are carry on or baggage ? quick response please.
Hello Pari –
It depends on the airline you are flying with, because many of them have different size requirements. We can bring our backpacks on the plane (carry on) most of the time, unless we are flying on a super budget carrier with strict requirements. We have only ever had 1 flight that made us check our packs.
There are many different sizes of backpacks – certainly the bigger ones may be too big to carry on. But the middle sizes will fit the carry on requirements for many of the major airlines.
Cheers!
– Liz
First time traveling with a backpack (where it really matters), hoping to just carry on, but this was very helpful, Thanks!
Hi Leena!
Thanks for checking out the post. Hope you find it useful in case you need to check your pack. Also check out our carry on bag restrictions for all the major airliners. This will let you know all the size requirements for major airliners. Where are you traveling to? www.peanutsorpretzels.com/carry-on-bag-size-what-to-pack/
Josh
This is good info. My wife and I are planning a backpacking trip through patagonia in Argentina for this December. Trying to decide if I can make a 75L pack work for checked in luggage although it ends up being 65.5 inches total size instead of the 62 inch max that Delta has. Maybe I can squeeze everything together or not pack it quite as tight? Otherwise I’ll have to get a smaller pack, which I’d really prefer not to do.
Once we figure that out, we just have to decide if it’s safe to leave our main packs in a hotel room for shorter day hikes while in country or if we should just lug everything with us everywhere we go. Either way, it’s going to be quite the trip!
Thanks for reading Aaron – and for the comment!
Wow – that sounds like an epic adventure. We have not made it to Patagonia yet, but would LOVE to go! 75L – wow, that sounds like a pretty hefty bag. We’ve never had trouble with our packs on Delta, but our packs are only 65 liters. I would definitely try not to pack it so tight and see if you can slide it by 🙂
Have a blast on your trip!
– Liz
Hi Liz — Thanks so much. This is terrific, especially since my daughter’s about to take her 65 L Osprey to China. It looks like she can’t take it onboard — the carry-on limits are 21″ x 15.7 x 9, which I think is pretty standard for carry ons. I noticed you wrote that you often do carry on your back pack. Is that with your 65 Liter? Do you find they relax the 21″ limit with backpacks? Thanks!
Hi Michelle – thanks for reading and for the comment!
We do have large bags – a 55 and 65 liter. We have been able to carry them onboard certain airlines in the states (like Delta) but we didn’t have them stuffed super full. We also tightened them down with the straps to try and compress the contents to make them look smaller. However since we’ve been abroad, we often do need to check them because they are packed full and quite large…so they are technically over the limit — especially for many of the budget airlines.
So it really depends on how much you put in them.
Thanks for reading and happy travels!
– Liz
Great article.
I’m really surprised at readers’ comments saying they take backpacks as carry-on luggage, surely even if the bag is the correct size and you can squeeze it in the checker at the airport, it would be way over the allowable weight?
I’ve travelled all over Asia and Russia and I know full well my 60 litre would never be allowed as carry-on.
Regarding straps, I use a 60 litre Berghaus Jalan II travel back which allows the harness to be zipped away out of the reach of airport conveyor belts!
Excellent Tips. Traveling to India this Fall with Our Backpacks. Will be sure to secure our packs as you suggest! 🙂
Thanks for reading Robert and for the comment. We are happy to know that you found our tips helpful. Have a wonderful trip!
– Liz
Hey ! Thanks fır the tips ! I will use many of them during my Safari trip to Kenya. All the best.
Thanks for reading, and for the comment. We are glad to hear that you found our tips useful. Have a wonderful trip!
– Liz
Never though people give such insights about securing backpacks during travel. It is common that people give advice to keep “important things” in backpacks. However, securing backpack is different. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for reading and for the comment. Many people don’t consider about how to secure their backpack, but it’s a real problem if a backpack gets damaged during the trip. So it’s definitely important for people to take precautions.
Happy travels!
Liz
Thanks for the tips! My boyfriend and I are doing a trip to Colorado, half backpacking in the mountains and the rest is sight seeing/hotels. SO we decided to check our backpacks and carry on our clothing for the cities. I would have never thought to secure the shoulder straps together and snapping the waist belt around the pack! Life saved 🙂
Thanks for reading Erin! That’s great to hear, living in Colorado right now…we are in LOVE! You will definitely have a blast. So I’m glad we could help – because getting your valuable backpack off a plane with torn up or broken straps is certainly something you won’t want to deal with when you are ready to set out on your adventure.
Take care and happy travels!
Liz
Thanks for the tips, Josh. My two travel backpacks (Osprey Farpoint and eBags Mother Lode Junior) have zippered panels to stow away shoulder straps and waist belts. I really appreciate this feature in a travel backpack. They’re both around 40 litres. I’d like to suggest another tip for dealing with the excess webbing on backpack straps. Have you heard of the Web Dominator? It’s a plastic clip with a piece of elastic cord attached. It works beautifully, by rolling or folding the webbing and securing it with the cord.
Hey! I want to buy backpack to travel for a week. Can you please tell me which size of backpack should I buy? I want to take my important things with me on my trip. I am waiting for your answer. Thanks!
Hi Mary – thanks for reading and for the great question!
It depends on how much stuff you want to bring and how much you will be moving around. If you are moving around a lot, then a smaller backpack is ideal. But of course, if you have a lot of clothes and things you want to bring – then it will need to be bigger.
I have a 55 liter backpack, which I use for most of my trips that range from 1-2 weeks (as well as a couple years of backpacking around Asia). It was small enough to carry, but large enough to bring quite a lot of stuff.
If I was just doing a smaller 1 week trip, then I would probably get a smaller pack so it is even easier to haul around.
I hope this helps 🙂
Liz
My wife and I use a 55L+5 and wouldn’t go any smaller, our packs are also external frame.
Thanks for the comment Trevor. I agree, I think 55 is quite a nice size. And if you have an extra day pack that can detach, that’s great too!
Happy travels!
Liz
Thank you for your tips . Does you have issues with security of your bag pack on check in ? I am curious as backpacks can’t be locked . Any advice will be appreciated ! 🙂
Hello Edward – thanks for reading.
We have never had issues with checking our backpacks. Regarding locks, most airlines don’t allow locks anymore due to security searches – so we never lock our luggage anyway.
I hope this helps!
Happy travels to you!
Liz
Can I bring on a back pack and a small purse?? What do u do about wedding dresses??
Hi Angela – thanks for reading!
How many items you can bring on board an aircraft depends on the airline, although most of them let you bring 1 carry-on and also a personal item (such as a purse). Regarding wedding dresses – again that depends on the airline. Although, I actually flew with my wedding dress without a problem. Even though I was sitting in economy, I gave it to the flight attendant and she hung it up in the First Class closet for me.
So you will need to contact the airline you are flying to see what their policies are.
Happy travels!
Liz
I will be traveling to Doha and will be using checking a large backpack. My question is what do you suggest as a carry on for the plane (I usually do a personal backpack). I will need things for the 17 hour flight. But once I land I dont want to have 2 backpacks. Suggestions????
Hello Jami – thanks for reading. That’s a great question!
There are many styles of travel backpacks that are sort of a 2-in-1 situation. Where you can snap part of the bag off to take with you on the plane, and then bring necessities for the flight. But when you land, you can re-attach it and it’s like carrying 1 larger backpack. We actually have a version of this with our Mountainsmith backpacks, although the detachable backpack is not very large t so we wouldn’t be able to bring much.
Another option is to get a collapsible secondary backpack. We actually have 2 of these (also from Mountainsmith) and we LOVE them because they fold up super small. We bring these with us a lot on trips for daytime backpacks when we hike or go to the beach, etc. but they fold up so small that we can easily stuff them into our larger backpack when we are not using them.
So what you could do is use one of these collapsible backpacks to bring your necessities with you on the flight. Then when you land, you can empty it and then pack it away in the larger pack so you don’t have 2 backpacks to carry around.
Does that make sense? Hope it helps. Have fun on your trip!!!
– Liz