A while ago, one of the water bottle sleeves in my backpack started to tear. In addition, the nature of my traveling life began to change. I was taking weekend trips to San Francisco, and the occasional long-term trip back to Minnesota (such as I am on now.) Now that I’m armed with a little bit of birthday money, particularly a gift card to REI, I’m on the hunt for a new backpack.
This is actually a tough situation. I’m hesitant to go window shopping right now, and this is the first time I’ve needed to be intentional about purchasing a backpack. Throughout college and the first couple years in my job, having a standard “school” backpack with several large pockets, a laptop compartment, and some smaller organizational areas has been nice. But there’s more to be done now. In particular, I’m less enthused by how many external zippers there are on my current backpack, or how the interior space is split up in a way that is sub-optimal for what I need. There’s a lot to figure out, since this is a world that I’m not very familiar with. But it’s fun to take the time and explore. It’s not a rush purchase, so I can be intentional about it.