Mous Optimal Travel Backpack review: this alternative to wheeled hand luggage is perfect for business trips

The travel backpack is making a comeback. Despite the popularity of wheeled luggage, they're not for everyone, and the Mous Optimal Travel Backpack is perfect for anyone who wants to maximize mobility while staying organized.

If you're often lugging a large laptop, a tablet, and reams of cables and need clothes and gear for a week on the road, this backpack's rugged, thoughtful engineering could be for you. For a brand that made its name crafting ultra-protective phone cases, it’s no surprise that the Optimal Travel Backpack is tough and tech-focused, with everything from AiroFoam drop-proof tech protection for laptops to a clever pocket designed to neatly hold a battery and smartphone, complete with cable pass-through.

Designed for business travelers, city explorers and minimalist packers, this modular carry-on backpack prioritizes organization and impact protection, but is it truly the optimal choice?

MOUS OPTIMAL TRAVEL BACKPACK REVIEW: PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

The Mous Optimal Travel Backpack is priced at UK£300/US$320/AU$494, placing it in the premium bracket of travel gear. It’s available directly from the Mous website, along with some tempting modular accessories.

Perhaps the most interesting is the Compression Wardrobe (UK £65 / US $70 / AU $108), a compressible hanging wardrobe with three compartments. There are also three smaller, more standard accessories — a Tech Pouch (UK £45 / US $50 / AU $77), Document Pouch (UK £35 / US $40 / AU $62) and Toiletry Pouch (UK £55 / US $60 / AU $92).

Bought together, that totals UK £480 / US $520 / AU $833, which marks the Mous Optimal Travel Backpack as a premium choice.

MOUS OPTIMAL TRAVEL BACKPACK REVIEW: DESIGN AND FEATURES

Visually, the Optimal Travel Backpack is understated — it's all clean lines, plain colors and subtle branding — instantly makes it suitable for business and leisure. But beneath the minimalism look lies some serious functionality.

A clamshell design that opens like a suitcase to make living out of luggage breeze, the 40L main compartment expands to 45L using a wraparound zipper. That's proof that the designers are themselves frequent travelers (doesn't everyone return from a trip with more than they took?).

Its dimensions (55x35x20cm) meet most airline carry-on restrictions, and it has grab handles galore. At 2.2 kg/4.8 lbs, it’s midweight for a backpack of this size. However, its haul of ballistic nylon (with a water-resistant polyurethane coating that adds a utilitarian shine), as well as Mous’s proprietary AiroFoam padding in the laptop compartment, give it a bulky, heavyweight feel even before it's got anything in it.

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The accessory ecosystem is intriguing, at least in part. The compression wardrobe is particularly innovative — three mesh compartments in a hanging structure that squeezes down using straps and fits into the main compartment. It’s ideal for (very) organized packing, though packing it while it lays flat is impossible — it's much easier to pack while it hangs in a wardrobe. If you’re staying one night in many hotels and you hate living out of a bag, the compression wardrobe is perfect, but it's a lot of infrastructure to haul around the world.

The tech pouch holds cables, power banks and SD cards in stretch and mesh compartments, while the toiletry pouch includes a detachable TSA-compliant clear bag and hanging hook. The document pouch doubles as a crossbody bag, with space for essentials and an AirTag pocket. All are potentially useful — and all can be housed in specific places in the Mous Optimal Travel Backpack — but why add even more bulk to an already bulky bag with a ton of pockets? Some of the accessories don't quite chime with the all-in-one design of the Mous Optimal Travel Backpack.

MOUS OPTIMAL TRAVEL BACKPACK REVIEW: PERFORMANCE

The Mous Optimal Travel Backpack scores high on storage efficiency but comes with a few ergonomic caveats.

The 25 internal pockets provide comprehensive organization, including a hidden passport pocket, padded laptop/tablet sleeves (though it's designed for 18-inch laptops despite them getting ever-slimmer and lighter, so the "traveling light" theme breaks down here), side cable pass-throughs and external water bottle storage. There's a front pocket with all kinds of small compartments and pockets for SD cards, pens, keys, cables and coins, which somewhat negates the need for the modular accessory pouches.

However, the main compartment isn't perfect. It lacks small pockets around the sides (which in some rival bags negate the need for a separate wash bag) and has no internal compression straps, both odd omissions for a bag that emphasizes structure. Instead, it has some very basic compression straps on the outside of the bag, which seems a rookie error — they're hard to use and don't achieve much.

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Theoretically, a fresh layer of organization can be added using the Compression Wardrobe. It’s fast to deploy and repack and offers surprising capacity. However, it requires using the expanded setting of the bag to fit, instantly nullifying the advantage of having an expanding backpack.

The fit and comfort will suit those happy with a robust, rigid structure, much like a suitcase. This is a large piece of luggage with a distinctly male size and design. For example, while I could wear the Mous Optimal Travel Backpack comfortably when fully loaded, my wife struggled. It looked too large for her, and the shoulder straps didn't work. However, what I did love about this backpack was packable shoulder straps, which means you can tuck them in and check in the bag if you need to (and, sometimes, you have no choice).

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MOUS OPTIMAL TRAVEL BACKPACK REVIEW: VERDICT

The Mous Optimal Travel Backpack is a thoughtfully designed, feature-rich bag that will appeal to travelers who value structure, tech protection and obsessive organization. While its size and rigidity may not suit casual or lightweight travelers — designed for men, not women — its compression wardrobe delivers some unexpected innovation.

The Mous Optimal Travel Backpack is not about traveling light. There wouldn’t be half as much padding, foam, cardboard and ballistic nylon if it were. Traveling light is about choosing the lightest backpack possible, not the heaviest.

For business travelers, digital nomads and ultra-organized packers who want to get as much as possible into a carry-on and don't want wheels, the Mous Optimal Travel Backpack is a serious contender for the best all-in-one carry-on backpack on the market.

MOUS OPTIMAL TRAVEL BACKPACK REVIEW: ALTERNATIVES TO CONSIDER

The Peak Design Travel Backpack 45L is a similarly expandable clamshell backpack with a more refined harness system, a simpler laptop sleeve and an overall more refined design. Nevertheless, it's designed to take less gear. Its shoulder straps are more comfortable, but they don't pack away.

The Samsonite Pro-DLX 5 is designed for business travelers has been around for years, and for good reason. Although it takes only 20 liters of gear, it can accept and protect a 17.3-inch laptop, a 10.1-inch tablet and a 17.3-inch laptop. It also has packable shoulder straps, two small wheels, and a telescopic handle for dragging it around airports.