Peak Design Duffel Review: How to pack a duffel bag?

This is one of my favorite weekend bags, and I am here to share an honest Peak Design Duffel Review. In this post, I will also share how to pack a duffel bag for a weekend getaway plus give you a free planner.

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Peak Design Duffel Review: How to Pack a duffel bag?

You can buy the Peak Design Duffel bag from their website or Amazon,

AMAZON: Click to buy from Amazon
PEAK DESIGN: Click to buy from Peak Design directly, with free shipping in the USA

Creators of Peak Design Duffel Bag

Peak Design is a certified B company, headquartered in San Francisco USA. They produce travel bags, backpacks, and camera gear to keep you organized and stylish. Their clean design (duffel bag and travel organizers) caught our attention and we decided to try out their duffel bags to carry our essentials for the weekend.

Salil and I normally carried our separate backpacks, or backpack and a small duffel bag on our road trips and weekend getaways. We opted for a 35 L capacity to carry all of our clothing, cosmetics, electronics accessories on the go. The stylish design and great reviews online prompted us to get the duffel bag – we are happy with the purchase, and hence the review (keep reading for that :))

What we also liked about Peak Design is that they donate 1% of their revenue to the environment related non-profit organizations.

OTHER PRODUCTS FROM PEAK DESIGN

As mentioned above, Peak Design also has a line for sleek travel backpack, pouches and other packing tools.

Best use of Peak Design 35L Duffel Bag

A stylish and a functional duffel bag, you can use it for a variety of occasions,

Carry-on: It is a perfect carry-on size at 35 litres.
General travel: Use it for road trips, weekend getaways, overnight stay
Backpack/duffel bag: With straps that can be converted to a backpack, this is a very versatile piece. It was a win-win for us, as we normally carry backpacks on overseas trips
Professional or casual: With such neat and clean design and colors, this duffel bag can be easily used in professional settings or casual night outs/vacations. When I conduct training sessions at my workplace, this is a great bag to carry training hand-outs, extra markers, pencils, etc to give out to the attendees.
Or everyday travel bag

Features of the Peak Design Duffel Bag 35l

Colors

Design Design 35 L Duffel bag comes in 2 colors – black and sage. We own the sage color, and it is unisex.

The bag interior color is grey, and it makes it easier to find items and locate things inside.

Size

Peak Design Duffel Bag is of 35 litres in capacity. It is a perfect size for the weekend getaway, road trips, carry-on, or even a gym bag.

Compartments & pockets

The duffel bag has a big compartment where you can store large/bulky clothing or smaller organizational pouches and packing cubes. Due to the longer length of the bag, you can easily store jackets, a packing cube with essential clothing, another pouch of cosmetics and underwear separately. You can store upto 3 full size packing or camera cubes.

The Travel Duffel is designed to store Peak Design packing cubes, however Eagle Creek packing cubes (3 pack sizes) are also fine.

The zipper pull is weatherproof and has anti-theft features.

The main compartment is super generous, so as a gym bag you can throw a towel, shoes, extra clothing, books, purse (for gym time after work or school). The duffel bag also includes an ID pocket to keep cards.

The interior compartment also has 2 netted pockets, these are handy to store bandanas, or any other small headgear, documents, charging cables, etc.

There are 4 exterior zippers, where you can store easy to access items like hand sanitizers, face masks, snacks for road trips, warm gloves for winter, etc.

Duffel bag hand straps & carrying options

Peak Design Duffel bag has removal padded top handles, and removable padded shoulder strap. The straps are hooked onto the main bag fabric. When I first saw the straps, I thought it would easily be undone, and fall out from the attachment points when we carry.

But I was wrong. The straps stay in place unto the bag, making it super easy to carry and go, or convert it into a backpack.

The versatility of converting the duffel into a backpack is what I like most. We are backpack lovers, and enjoy the hands-free nature of backpacks when we are out and about exploring.

Not to forget, all the handles can be adjusted as well for ease of use, via the Cord Hook quick-connection system.

Material & fabric

Peak Design Duffel Bag is made up of weatherproof material, and 100% recycled 400D nylon canvas shell, and 900D Polyester and leather accents.

It is not 100% waterproof, but it keeps your belongings clean, and dry in the event of a quick shower, or if you place it on any type of ground surface. We never had any issues with the bag wear and tear, after repeated use in different weather conditions.

Cord hook hardware is anodized aluminum (hand straps) and glass-filled (shoulder strap). It has Silicone-coated mesh internal pockets.

Lifetime warranty

All of Peak Design items come with lifetime warranty.

You can buy the Peak Design Duffel bag from their website or Amazon,

AMAZON: Click to buy from Amazon
PEAK DESIGN: Click to buy from Peak Design directly, with free shipping in the USA

Our thoughts on the product

We really like the Peak Design Duffel bag. The interior compartment is minimalist, and I like it that way. If we want more organization, we use our packing cubes. However, for many of our trips, we have not used any.

We keep our clothes, bulkier outerwear like jackets, beanie, underwear, and socks inside pockets, plus a cosmetic pouch. On the exterior pocket, we keep wet issues, extra masks, perfume, and mosquito/bug spray when visiting national parks.

When we initially started using the duffel bag, the zipper was a little stiff, but over-time it softened itself out. We have kept it on the concrete floor, car seat, trunk, carpet, etc and it has been fine – no signs of wear and tear, funny smell or anything like that.

How to pack a duffel bag for the weekend?

As we have used the Peak Design duffel bag for most weekend trips, we will show you how to flawlessly pack it (with or without packing cubes).

So in terms of packing, here is a list of items.

ESSENTIAL CLOTHING & SHOES

2 sets of clothes for each day – Comfortable tops and pants/shorts
Pack a pretty dress or top for Saturday night out
Undergarments
2 pairs of socks
Toiletry Bag with all of your essentials – I pack my skincare routine as normal like moisturizer, sunscreen, lipgloss, and 2 lipstick, lightweight foundation, eye pencil, compact powder. Here is a nice toiletry pouch to use
Comfortable shoes – Shoes are important, doesn’t matter how long or short the travel time is. I am in love with my KEEN shoes, super comfortable. It is made up of breathable material and doesn’t stink after days of wear! Click to view my favorite pair from KEEN
We keep a spare flip flops inside the duffel bag

ELECTRONICS

Camera: We are currently using our Sony a7iii on our weekend trips, and love it. There is a learning curve but we are enjoying it so far. Click to view Sony a7iii
In the past, we enjoyed taking pictures from our lightweight and mirrorless Sony A6000 and our iPhones. Click to view prices for Sony A6000
Pack a phone charger, preferably something with a multi-port charger so that you can change your iPhones, Android tablets/Kindle, etc
Kindle: We love to read books on our Kindle. Grab the new Kindle e-Reader here, and read unlimited books!

EXTRAS

We store them in the exterior pocket

Sunglasses
Poncho
Wet wipes

How to pack inside the Peak Design 35 L Duffel bag?

Start with the clothes. You can use a packing cube, or just keep the clothes at the bottom of the bag.

Fold and store tops, bottoms, dresses, scarves, etc. For a weekend away you will normally have 2-3 pairs of clothing so that’s not a lot, you can skip the cube if you like.
Get a pouch for undergarments
Fill your cosmetic items in a make-up bag
Place these two pouches inside the bag. Use the reminder space to store your camera/electronics kit
For smaller items like masks, wipes, selfie stick, gloves, etc. there is enough room to store them on the side pockets. These pockets are generous to store multiple items.

So there you have it! This is how we pack for the weekend, using our favorite Peak Design 35 L duffel bag.

BUY IT FROM

AMAZON: Click to buy from Amazon
PEAK DESIGN: Click to buy from Peak Design directly, with free shipping in the USA

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Peak Design Duffel Review: How to pack a duffel bag?