I’ve been back from Oregon for a few days now and have a bunch of posts in the toaster-oven just waiting to cook all the way through.  We’ll start out with some hot appetizers to prime the appetite and move from there as a I gain time and motivation.

Picture not to scale. credit: www.ems.com

After watching Thai Airways maul my backpack this winter picking up the EMS Pack Travel Tote was an easy decision.  The Travel Tote doesn’t require much of a description, its a giant nylon bag (8,200 Cubic Inches!) that lets you check your backpack without having to worry about all the sick and nasty things that may happen to it before, after, and during the flight.  It folds up nicely to about the size of a book so its easy to put away once you arrive at your destination and it comes with a shoulder strap, which frankly, isn’t worth mentioning, but I need some more words here.

The Pack Travel Tote is particularly useful for gear intensive trips, when everything won’t fit in your backpack, and you are disinclined to check a second bag or carry an additional full pack on board.  After putting a fully packed 50L pack in the the Tote I was able to fit a large quantity (upwards of 1 shitload) of additional packables into the bag, enough so that US Airways was kind enough to charge me an additional $20 for having an overweight bag!

The bottom line is this bag is cheap ($39) and effective, if you are forced to check packs a lot while flying its senseless not to have something like this.