Pacsafe GO Anti-Theft 34L Carryon Backpack Review

While rolling carry on luggage may incorporate hard sides and built-in TSA-approved locks, there isn’t often much standing between your gear and a would-be thief in a material travel backpack. But what if you could get a carry on backpack with the same amount of security, or more? We’re not just talking about locking zippers here, although those certainly play a part. Yet the Pacsafe GO Anti-Theft 34L Carryon Backpack has hidden secrets to keep your gear safe from nefarious people you may encounter. Hopefully not, but it at least promises to do so if the need arises.

Does it all live up to the hype, and is it worth bringing along on your next adventure? That’s what we’re here to find out.

External Components

Along with protecting your gear, Pacsafe works to save the planet by incorporating Earth-friendly, sustainable materials into its bags. The fabric on the Anti-Theft 34L Carryon Backpack is no different. Its rPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) 600D recycled polyester is made from plastic from about 28 plastic bottles. If you’re looking to reduce your contribution to garbage dumps around the world, this is a tiny start.

The material is coated with a durable water repellent to keep your gear dry if you travel to Thailand during the rainy season. We’re happy it’s free of nasty perfluorochemicals (PFCs) because they are bad for you and the environment. We’re testing the Jet Black colorway, which is black with some gray accents, but you can also get it in Fresh Mint, a blue-green with yellow accents, or Rose, which is pink. No matter which you choose, there’s a brown panel on the bottom of the bag’s front. It provides a little eye candy if that’s your sort of thing, but we’re not sure we’re really vibing with it. All three colorways have a small black Pacsafe logo patch at the bottom right corner above that brown panel; it’s more obvious on the two brighter hues and less so on the black.

You wouldn’t know it from looks alone, but there’s an eXomesh slashguard built into the material to stop someone from cutting your bag with a knife to get your gear. We can feel it if we push hard from the interior to the outside of the bag, especially near the bottom; it’s a wire mesh reinforcing the bag, which is also good for durability.

We have no concerns about the durability of the zippers, either, because they’re from YKK, one of the best brands around. These aren’t any old zippers; they have built-in locking mechanisms throughout the bag. There’s a secure tab covering the end of the front compartment zipper, which you feed the webbing straps attached to those zippers through to keep this area pretty secure. At the very least, you’ll feel someone trying to open the compartment if you’re wearing the bag.

On the main compartment, the zippers have holes you can slide a lock through, and there’s a retractable Zip Clip on the left side. It hides away when you don’t need it, but you can pull out the clip to fasten it through the two zipper pulls, keeping them locked in place. It’s a tight fit and takes some effort to do this, but the tradeoff to that inconvenience is that it will be difficult for a thief to undo it quickly, too.

Four compression straps help keep things in check when you’re carrying less. Pacsafe says the design should enable you to use this as a travel backpack as well as a daypack. While we disagree (more on that later), the compression straps try to keep the extra material from flopping around when we unpack from a trip. The two straps on the left open with Duraflex buckles so you can enter the main compartment (the straps block the zipper track when engaged), and the two on the right have adjusters that you can cinch tighter but not disengage. They don’t block any zippers, but the top one does block the water bottle pocket, and we wish we could undo the strap to feed it through the handle of our Hydro Flask to keep it from sliding out of the pocket. Alas, we have to employ a carabiner to get the job done. All four straps do have elastic keepers to contain the extra.

At the top of the bag is a thin handle. It’s good for hanging the bag up on a hook or moving it from place to place, but it’ll dig into your hand if you carry a fully packed bag that way for too long. There’s also a luggage pass-through running vertically up the back of the bag. You’ll have to sit the bag sideways to slide it over the handle of your rolling carry on luggage, but there’s a larger, padded handle on the left side of the bag that you can hold to slide it on or take it off; if you need to carry the bag for some time off your back, this is the one you want to hold instead of the top one.

Turning now to the harness system, we have to say that we find it a bit lacking. The back panel has a decent amount of padding, yet we can still feel gear poking if we don’t pack entirely flat objects on the bottom. And if you do, you’ll feel the rigidity of what you’ve packed pressing up against your back. There isn’t any breathable mesh or air channel to prevent a sweaty back, either on the back panel or the undersides of the shoulder straps.

Those straps have a slight contour but no other support (sternum strap, hip belt, etc). They do have Carrysafe slashguard straps with built-in Dyneema wire to keep someone from trying to cut your bag away from where it’s locked. Plus, there’s a TurnNLock security hook at the bottom of the left shoulder strap, so you can wrap the strap around a fixed object and lock it in place by turning a stopper under the lever that opens the hook to keep someone from snatching the bag from the back of your chair.

Fit Notes

Its square shape isn’t out of line with other travel backpacks. After all, it’s a great way to maximize the usable space inside. However, the Pacsafe GO Anti-Theft 34L Carryon Backpack doesn’t look as aesthetically pleasing as many of our favorite models. The brown panel on the front seems to be a nod to more heritage packs, yet it’s not leather and doesn’t cover the entire bottom, so the design stops short of fully embracing the style.

Inside The Pack

There’s not a ton of organization inside, but let’s look at the space you have to fill. The large front compartment has the only pockets inside the bag. It opens with a slight horseshoe to give you wide access to the area, though you’ll have to pull the zippers out of the tab covering the end of the track to open it. The really large area is big enough to hold a 13-inch MacBook Air if you want to slide yours inside a protective laptop case first. This is the only way we feel slightly comfortable doing so; there’s no dedicated laptop compartment or sleeve, but the front pocket is raised from the bottom and lightly padded, so when you combine that with the padding on your laptop sleeve, it’s an okay amount of protection.

Inside, you’ll find a gray camouflage 150D recycled polyester liner and a key clip on a leash along the top near the right corner. Just below it are three slip pockets where we pack a notebook, pen, and a travel mouse, so you can fill it with a few tech accessories if you don’t want to bring a separate pouch and you’re packing light. On the left is another slip pocket topped with a hook-and-loop fastener that includes RFID-blocking technology to keep thieves from skimming data from your minimalist wallet or passport, whichever you put inside.

The travel water bottle pocket we mentioned above is on the right side of the bag. It’s wide enough to hold various-sized bottles, but the bottom compression strap tends to cut off part of the depth. Even if you loosen it, it’s a little difficult to slide a bottle past it. Luckily, it’s fairly tall, so we didn’t have many problems keeping a bottle inside, but you may want to use a carabiner to hold yours in place if it has a handle to loop it through.

A C-shaped zipper lets you open the main compartment fully clamshell, like a suitcase. Don’t forget to undo the Zip Clip and the compression buckles first!

Inside, you’ll find X-shaped tie-down straps running from each corner of the bag to meet with a buckle in the center. They allow you to hold your clothing or packing cubes in place so that they don’t all slide to the bottom thanks to gravity, but you’ll have to remember to pull them out before filling the compartment since they attach at the bottom.

The sides of the main compartment are pretty tall, so you have a decent amount of room to pack. However, they’re very floppy, and keeping the far side (which is still attached to the front panel) from caving in as you pack is challenging. That said, it’s certainly not the only travel backpack with more flexible sides—you don’t want to carry something reinforced with polycarbonate or ABS plastic on your back, after all. And the 34L capacity gives us plenty of room to easily fit several days’ worth of clothing (more if you’re traveling someplace warm and are adept at packing a travel capsule wardrobe, less if you’re packing an outfit a day or heading somewhere colder that requires more bulky layers).

You can make it more comfortable if you line softer layers on the bottom than if you bury a laptop there, although your device may be better protected there than against the front panel. Whatever you pack inside, you can rest assured that it will be safe from all but the most determined of thieves, although you may want to find a way to get it off your back after walking a half mile or so. However, while you can unpack it for use as a daypack once you reach your destination, we don’t think there’s quite enough organization for the amount of space to do so comfortably. Instead, we recommend tossing a sling or a packable daypack inside so you have something smaller for everyday adventures.