When it comes to the best backpacks on the market, pocket space is really crucial. You need space to store all of your bits and bobs, in order to make travelling as efficient as possible.
Right now, I'm testing the Carl Friedrik 72-hour Backpack – watch this space for a review – and saw the perfect opportunity to test it on a recent trip. Sure, it was a little less than the 72 hour period rated in the name, but I never pack light anyway, so it should still get a good run out.
Initial impressions were good. The bag is robust and solid, with a large main compartment and a myriad of side pockets. I had more than enough room to load in a dinner jacket, plus clothes for a few days, books, diaries, laptops and chargers.
"Great," I thought, as I left the hotel, "this bag is perfect for these kinds of trips."
That is until I got stopped at the security check. This wasn't just a routine stop-and-wave-a-wand-around stop, either.
This was four levels of management being called over, each gently more menacing than the next.
This was an entire queue of expectant travellers being shifted onto another carousel for their luggage to be checked.
This was deep interrogation about who I was, what I did for a living, where I was going, and – the ever dreaded – "did you pack this bag yourself?"
Needless to say, I was perplexed. What on Earth in my humdrum collection of t-shirts and charity shop novels had caused such a staggering reaction?
As it turns out, none of that. See, lurking deep within one of the many pockets of this backpack was a small 9v battery. I'd packed it weeks beforehand when I needed to change the battery in a smoke alarm. Thereafter, it remained in an unopened pocket, waiting patiently to scare the ever-living Christ out of the morning shift staff.
And yes, I'm well aware that I should have checked more thoroughly. Rest assured, I will be in future. Lesson learned; knuckles rapped.
It's not the first time I'd had something like this, either. Weeks after having lost my toothbrush on another trip, it turned up in one of the inside pockets. Like Mary Poppins' handbag, this bag just seems to keep all manner of things inside.
All of that has led to me giving it a new moniker – the Carl Friedrik 72-hour Backpack – so good, it (almost) shut down an airport.
