I purchased this Kara backpack from Shopbop (during their awesome sale FTW) mostly so that I could use it for my month-long road trip. And what a great backpack it was for traveling. Actually I would gander that really any backpack is a great travel bag. But I especially love the simplicity of Kara bags.
Here are some of the other things I love about this backpack:
~ It can fit my DSLR along with everything else that I needed for traveling
~ The adjustable straps were super comfortable even though they are on the skinny side. I never found them digging into my shoulders
~ The large zip compartment made grabbing things super easy
~ Fully lined on the inside with a zipper pocket
~ An outside compartment where I could easily slip in my phone and sunglasses. That pockets had a fairly strong magnet closure and faced my back so it was quite secure
~ The pebbled leather makes it super easy to maintain, even in such a light color. I never had to worry about getting color transfer on the leather or about getting it wet (in fact for the last half of the trip through Oregon, Washington and Vancouver, BC, the bag got rained on a ton of times and I just had to wipe off the water and it was fine
Some things that could be improved:
~ Maybe a higher quality zipper or at least 2 pull zippers that can zip from either side. Due to the shape of the bag and the stiffness of the zipper, at times it was hard to do a quick zip up if I was in a rush
~ I was bit annoyed that the small handle at the top of the backpack kept folding down instead of standing upright (but this is minor)
~Also when carrying heavy things, the backpack wouldn't really hold its shape (like in the picture above)
~ I really wish this was ethically produced in the USA, but it's made in China
Anyways I love the look and utility of this bag so I'm definitely going to keep it around and use it for travel.
P.S. And congrats to Phoebe for winning my artisan-made goods giveaway! And thank you to everyone who entered!