Osprey Sojourn Porter 30L Review

Osprey is known for creating travel backpacks, daypacks, and other gear that’s easy to use on a trip, on the trail, and in the office, yet doesn’t break the bank. From packing cubes to slings and even rolling carry on luggage, the brand often marries useful organization with durable materials to make packs that we know will last for the long haul.

However, while we’ve recommended Osprey bags in our packing lists, we’ve also had our share of nitpicks with some of their bags, from a too-tight yoke to dangling straps, so we were interested to see where on the rating scale the Osprey Sojourn Porter 30L would fall. We’ve used it for commuting to and from the office and on a weekend trip to Michigan’s Mackinac Island, a trip that involved a ferry ride and a long trek from the dock to our accommodations on foot (and up 200 steps), as no cars are allowed, so let’s dive in and find out!

External Components

Before we get to that experience, let’s go over the materials, hardware, and features you’ll find around this bag. There’s a lot going on, so settle in.

The primary material is a 460D recycled high-tenacity ripstop nylon that’s bluesign® approved and coated with a PFAS-free DWR for water resistance. We got caught in the rain once or twice and can attest that it works as promised. The bottom and side panels are a sturdier 1680D recycled ballistic polyester. We like the extra durability because this is what will hit the ground when you toss it in a car trunk or set it on the floor, whether on a damp ferry boat, a hotel room floor, or cement.

The Osprey name and logo is printed front and center on our Black colorway, with Sojourn Porter 30 centered near the bottom. You can also get it in Graphite Purple, Koseret Green, or Brindle Brown, as of the time of writing, but Osprey often changes colorway options, so check back if those don’t suit your style. (To save you from Googling, if you were wondering, as we were, what Koseret is, it’s an herb used in Ethiopian cooking related to Mexican oregano. Now you know!)

This bag has several carry handles: a beefy one on top, two thinner ones at the top and bottom of the front panel, and one on the left side. While we like having options, sometimes the top one gets in the way of the quick-access pocket, and, when compressed, it can be hard to access the thinner front handles.

As for hardware, there are YKK zippers threaded with cords that end in molded plastic pulls that are easy to open and close, yet sometimes run into each other, as there are lots of zippers around this bag. Only the zippers on the laptop compartment feature holes you can fit together to slide a travel lock through. You could pop locks through the holes at the end of the plastic tabs on any of the other tracks, but the zippers would be able to pull a couple of inches apart because of the length of the cords and pull on each one.

There is a tab covering the right-side end of the main compartment zipper, so you can slide the pulls through here for additional security (you’ll feel if someone starts unzipping that compartment without sliding the pulls under the tab). A metal TSID tab is attached above the bottle pocket on the left side of the bag. You can register the bag with your information, and then someone can scan the printed QR code to get your deets if you become separated from your gear.

Along the four corners of the bag front, you’ll find little loops where you can attach a carabiner to carry a travel hat or an extra water bottle; we didn’t find much use for them, but they’re not too obtrusive if you don’t need them and helpful if you do.

Finally, there are Osprey-branded buckles and adjusters all over the bag. We didn’t have issues with any of them and, so, have no complaints, even though we’re not sure who manufactured them. There are two primary places you’ll find the buckles: on the StraightJacket compression and the harness system. We’ll chat about the StraightJacket compression straps attached to the padded side walls of the bag first. These side walls are quite rigid to protect the gear you’re carrying from getting crushed or squished. However, they’re so structured that they stick straight out when you don’t have the compression straps buckled down.

You can connect the left and right sides of the straps together to bridge both sides of the bag to the center, or you can go further and connect the male buckles on the left to the female components tucked under fabric flaps along the right side of the bag. This allows you to compress the bag even further when carrying less. Yet, it is then difficult, if not impossible, to get at the quick-access pocket on top of the bag or the front compartment without undoing everything. The main compartment is completely inaccessible this way, which didn’t bother our tester, but sometimes you want to get your phone or wallet out of the top pocket, and it’s very hard to do so when the bag is all tied up. We’re not huge fans of the “butterfly just emerging from chrysalis” look, either.

However, you usually won’t have the bag completely compressed. Even so, if the side walls are compressed at all, it impacts accessibility to the front pocket, which is an issue since that’s where the key clip lives.

As for the harness system, it’s big and beefy, as befitting a 30L travel backpack. The contoured shoulder pads have a breathable mesh lining, and the rear features Osprey’s Airscape back panel, a taut portion of material and mesh hovering over a ridged panel for breathability. There are load lifters on the straps, a sternum strap, and a thickly-padded hip belt, so our tester had no issue hauling a weekend’s worth of clothing, a running kit and shoes, and a laptop with its associated gear (hotspot, cords, chargers) for a mile from the ferry dock to her destination—even though it involved a steep climb and the aforementioned 200 steps.

There are elastic keepers on the shoulder straps and hip belt, but not the sternum strap, so there’s still a bit of dangling going on when wearing this bag. The hip belt is a bit overkill, but you can tuck it away behind the back panel if you don’t want to use it. Then, it resides between the two layers of the Airscape panel, so you will likely feel it against your lower back; our tester mostly left it out to hang around when not in use. It’s not removable.

The remainder of the harness system tucks away, as well, for easy packing in a car trunk or the overhead bin of a plane. Simply unbuckle the shoulder straps from the hip belt and load lifters, tuck away the hip belt, and then stuff the shoulder straps in the zippered pocket atop the back panel. Once you zip it shut, you won’t have to worry about any extra straps tangling with someone else’s luggage and can use one of the many carry handles to move it where it needs to go.

Fit Notes

How the bag looks and how it feels depends more on how you’re trying to use it than anything else.

Stuffed to the gills with a trip’s worth of gear, it looks like an average travel backpack. Sure, there are some more straps going on, and there may even be an extra bag attached—the Sojourn Porter works with Osprey’s Daylite and Farpoint/Fairview daypacks when you pass the compression straps through pass-throughs on the front of those bags. That gives it the look of the Osprey Farpoint 55 Travel Pack, a travel backpack with an included daypack.

Regardless of whether you’re attaching another bag, it’s comfortable to carry with 30L worth of gear, although it is quite stiff to put on and take off.

It’s also comfortable when filled with less, but the looks tend to suffer as the side panels draw closer together. It seems like Osprey intended the StraightJacket compression to give the bag a cleaner look along with a smaller footprint, but only met one of those goals (the smaller footprint).

Inside The Pack

Different looks aside, we like that the Sojourn Porter 30L has a lot of space to stash gear, so let’s go over all your options.

At the top of the bag, underneath the beefy top handle, is a large quick-access pocket for your phone, wallet, and other small travel essentials. It’s large enough to hold a small 3-1-1 bag to keep your liquid toiletries within reach in case you need to pull it out at airport security, though this pocket hangs into the main compartment, so it can be hard to pull large items out when the bag is fully packed. As we mentioned, getting things out of this pocket can be hard nearly any time, so we didn’t use it when carrying a sling.

The entrance to the laptop compartment is against the back panel on the left side of the bag. The zipper runs across both shoulder straps on the top of the bag, but it’s truly only accessible through the side if you have the load lifters engaged. There’s no mention of this compartment on Osprey’s site, but we find it large enough to hold a 16-inch laptop, though it’s tight for thicker PCs. The back panel and a suspended bottom protect your device, so it’s safe if you don’t take care when setting the bag down. There’s also a very large, slightly padded, mesh zipper pocket inside with vertical access. You could use it for cords or even a tablet, but we put our tech elsewhere and left it empty.

Instead, we put a tech pouch and other accessories in the front pocket, which features admin panel organization. Its horseshoe zipper opening only extends down to the first compression buckle, though the compartment spans the entire front of the bag, top to bottom. It’s in here that you’ll find a very short key leash and clip in Osprey’s iconic red. We put our car and house keys there when vacationing so we knew where to find them when we got home, but it’s not easily accessible enough to use every day. There’s also a large zipper pocket in this area and two square slip pockets—one made with liner material and one an open-weave mesh. These are where we stash cords, wall chargers, and a WiFi hotspot, and there’s plenty of space for a small tech pouch, as well. However, keep in mind that this area is less accessible when the StraightJacket is engaged, so you’ll want the bag to be free before trying to dive in.

On the bag’s left side is a large piece of stretchy material. It has a tab and an opening in the center to hold nearly any size water bottle. While wedging it in is a bit slower than slipping it into an open pocket, we like that our bottle is much more secure.

The main compartment zippers also run horseshoe but reach all the way to the bottom of the bag for a clamshell-style opening. That makes it easy to pack the bucket-like main compartment at home and access it at your destination, though not necessarily while en route.

There are a few organizational features in here we appreciate, though they tend to clash with one another. Both sides feature large zipper pockets. One is mesh for breathability, and the other is the same gray recycled polyester material as the remainder of the liner. We used the mesh pocket for socks and underwear instead of a small packing cube. We put a travel hair brush and running race kit (race clothing, bib pins, and running belt) in the liner pocket to stay organized and keep our race gear separate from the remaining clothing in packing cubes. These pockets are large enough that each acts like a small packing cube, freeing you from needing to get one of your own.

However, there are also compression straps to hold the rest of your gear in place in the main compartment. We find it best to use packing cubes in here to keep everything in place as it bounces around your back, but it’s still nice to lock them down with the straps. However, there are four loops at the top of the bag sides to hold the compression straps near the top. They work great to keep them from getting buried under your clothing or cubes, and we like using them because they also help cinch the bag tighter to your back when you’re done packing. Unfortunately, doing this also blocks the zipper track in two places on each side pocket, hindering access. Sure, we could pull them out of the loops at our destination, but the loops aren’t super large, the buckles are sizable, and it’s a bit of a tedious process, so we just left them in there and dealt with unzipping a portion of the pocket, reaching underneath the strap to unzip some more, and so on. We would rather just have the straps attached at the top of the main compartment sides since we can’t see why we’d need them connected to the bottom.

In all, most of the headaches we have with this bag are when trying to compress it because we are carrying less. May we recommend bringing a separate daypack or a packable bag on your trip instead of trying to make the Osprey Sojourn Porter be every bag? It works well as the 30L travel backpack Osprey made it to be. It’s easy to pack, holds a lot of gear, and most everything is pretty easy to access when on a trip. It works less well as a daypack, so don’t try to use it that way, even though the StraightJacket compression straps make it tempting to do so.