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Wanderlite daypack review - A light packable backpack

ReviewEdward Kiledjian

As many of you already know, I am preparing for a 2 week business trip to China and will be reviewing some of the products I will be taking with me.  In a later post, I will talk about my main luggage (the Red Oxx Air Boss) but in addition to that, I will be carrying with me a “special” backpack made by the fine folks at Barefoot (called the Wanderlite Packable Daypacks).

The Wanderlite is a very affordable ($US 27) packable backpack that can be rolled up into a tidy little package, making it very easy to pack. Unlike many of its competitors, the Wanderlite is made in Colorado.

In the above picture, you can see how small it rolls up. It is a standard teardrop shaped backpack with one main compartment and another smaller pocket on the front.  The main compartment offers a considerable 32L of storage capacity, yet the entire bag weights slightly less than 9 ounces. This carry capacity coupled with the small pack size and low weight is why I like it.

It is built using a decent  420 denier material and the interior is coated with a water resistant polyurethane coating to keep your belongings nice and dry. I generally want my bags to use the heavy duty YKK brand zippers, but the Wanderlite uses a much cheaper, no name brand, one. To be honest, I tested the zipper, roughly opening and closing it about 100 times and didn't encounter any issues and the zipper is still as good as new.

The shoulder straps are unpadded yet comfortable for short day trip use (even when fully loaded). It also has a grab handle on the top making it easy to pickup.

 

I actually loaded the pack with close to 20 pounds of clothes, electronics and accessories and wore it for about an hour. The bag was easy to carry and it held up extremely well. I wouldn’t use this bag for a hiking excursion, but for the purpose of an easily packable, lightweight secondary day-trip bag, the wanderlite can’t be beat.