| I've travelled handbaggage-only ever since I was 19 and BA managed to lose my luggage on both outbound and return flights of the same trip to NY. By now, this policy must have saved a total of several weeks of my life ...
My previous approach was to take full advantage of IATA handbaggage rules: that you're allowed to carry one standard item of handbaggage plus a 'personal item'. A camerabag counts as a personal item, so I carried a maximum-handbaggage sized rollerbag, plus a small camera backpack.
However, while the rest of the world continues to apply IATA rules, the UK is the only country on the planet to apply its own rules. Everyone I have spoken to about it - airport security staff, airline ground crew, flight crew and ground crew - has been equally bemused about why the UK sees some need to ignore the rest of the international community and make up its own nonsensical rules.
The stupid, annoying and frustrating UK rules are (a) only one item of handbaggage and (b) exactly 1cm (yes, one centimetre) smaller than IATA dimensions!
The only result of this change is that travellers who once packed everything in two bags to enable rapid security searches now have to cram everything in so tight it takes ten minutes to repack after a search.
When this bizarre rule was still in place seven months after it was introduced, I decided it was time to accept that this was the new reality and that I needed to adjust my approach to suit.
I thus needed a single bag that would carry all my standard stuff (laptop, clothes, toiletries, etc) as well as my camera gear (main: D200, 35-70/2.8, Sigma 10-20; backup: D70, 18-70DX). It had to be within handbaggage limits, and it absolutely had to be a roller-bag (I'm fairly sure that you must cross into Cambodia when you walk from one side of the new Bangkok airport to the other). Ability to be a backpack too was desirable but not 100% essential.
The biggest challenge was that the bag needed to accommodate a 17" laptop. Although the Rolling Computrekker claimed that it does, it in fact doesn't. The Lowepro Road Runner AW does - just.
Bag manufacturers just love to describe their bags as 'systems'. Ordinary luggage, bike luggage, camera bags ... they all do it. The Road Runner is the first bag I've ever seen that truly deserves the name.
It's both a backpack and a rollerbag. Most combined bags are pretty crap at both jobs. As a backpack, the frame, handle and wheels dig into your back. As a rollerbag, the straps get in the way and drag along the ground.
The Road Runner gets around both problems. As a backpack, the frame and associated gubbins are on the outside of the bag, so not against your back. As a rollerbag, you can zip the straps insider a slide-out cover.
And on a trip when you won't use it as a backpack at all, both waist-straps and shoulder-straps are completely removeable, so you can leave them at home.
Inside, you have the usual camerabag configuration of velcro compartments that can be reconfigured at will. Personally, I love these systems even when it's not being used as a camera-bag as it makes it really easy to pack: everything has a compartment. But if you want to maximise the space, the entire compartment system itself is attached by velcro, so you can simply lift it out without losing your carefully-organised compartments.
With the backpack straps attached and zipped away, it is just within the 1cm-smaller-than-IATA UK handbaggage limit. Actually, that's not quite true - with the laptop in it, it is marginally thicker, but I've found from experience that since you are required to remove the laptop at security anyway, that isn't an issue. (If you get a real jobsworth at security, you may need to apply a certain amount of deviousness, but I shan't go into details here - save to say that a travelling companion found it most amusing to watch me do it.)
The net result is a single bag that almost carries as much as my old rollerbag and Microtrekker 200 combined, and I can once again travel unhindered by the bureaucratic nonsense that passes for 'security' these days.
|
