Sea to Summit Mesh Sack Review

The Sea to Summit Mesh Sack is a simply designed piece of travel gear that, on paper, has a ton of uses between when you leave for the airport and when you return home. Just because a piece of gear can do something doesn’t mean that you will use it for that purpose, and we can’t help but wonder whether these sacks will fall into that category. Let’s dive in and find out!

Materials & Aesthetic

Kicking things off with the primary material, we’ve got a 150D mesh for most of the sack’s exterior. Sea to Summit doesn’t list what this fabric is, but it feels like either nylon or polyester. Either way, it feels very durable and doesn’t have much give, so the size you see is the size you get.

The best thing we’ve figured out to compare it to is the big bag they bring out during physical education class with the soccer, basketballs, and footballs inside. We don’t think you’ll be bringing any of those in your carry-on, but it speaks to the durability of the mesh. If you are bringing sports balls, we won’t judge you for it.

On the top of the sack is a 70D nylon drawcord sleeve. This material feels like wind-pants from the 1990s and even has the same pop of color for effect. It scrunches up nicely when you since down the cord, but the main draw of this feature is the unique color materials that the different sacks use. There are three different colors—Royal Blue, Olive Green, and Red so that you know which bag is which. A few colors repeat on different size sacks, but they’re far enough apart in size that you wouldn’t mistake one for another. We’ll get more into that later, though.

Before we depart from this topic, we feel we have to mention that the Red colorway is, in fact, orange. It’s burnt orange, but it’s not red. This isn’t a huge deal, but we thought that the people deserve to know what color the Red colorway actually is.

The drawcord is quite durable, and the hard plastic adjuster is easy to use. Once locked into position it stays tight, even when heavy pressure is applied. There isn’t a gap for gear inside to sneak out when cinched completely closed, which is a plus. This is bolstered by the nylon drawcord sleeve we just mentioned, as it’s super thin to enable a tight squeeze but offers enough volume to gum up any hole that might remain when the drawcord is tightened.

There’s a pull handle on the bottom of the sack that feels as if it’s crafted from nylon. It’s more comfortable to hold than the drawcord, especially when the sack gets full. If you have an extremely heavy loadout, like a mess of wet clothes or shoes, the pull handle isn’t comfortable due to the lack of padding. As we said, it’s more comfortable than the drawcord, so we’re happy with the inclusion overall.

Now that we’ve covered the materials, we figure this is a good place to discuss sizing. There are nine different sizes, starting at XXS and moving up to XXL. The XXS is 2.5 liters, the XS is 4 liters, the S is 6.5 liters, the M is 9 liters, the L is 15 liters, the XL is 20 liters, and the XXL is 30 liters.

Usage & Features

As we mentioned earlier, the colors help tell the sacks apart and none of the sizes are the same color as the two sizes directly next to it in the size order. If you were to get the XXS and M, you would have two royal blue toppers, but 2.5 liters is far less than 9 liters, so you should be able to tell the difference.

This is a nice touch, especially if you plan to store similar items in different size sacks, as you can tell them apart even if the things inside are the same color. You could split different outfits between different bags for a trip where you need to have both formal and casual wear. Or, if you’re headed to the laundromat, separate clothes that need to be washed differently.

Speaking of laundry, this was our primary use case for these sacks. They’re perfect for hanging on the wall of your hotel or Airbnb bathroom to collect dirty clothes as you wear them. Depending on what you have available to hang it from, you can hang it from the pull handle or the drawcord. Using the drawcord makes it easier to slide clothes inside as the access point is on top. It can be difficult to hang it from the pull handle given its short length, but it is easier for shorter people to use once hung as the access point is closer to the ground. Be sure not to let anything tumble out, though! We found the Nite Ize S-Biner makes hanging easier, but any carabiner should do the trick.

Another use for the sacks is for wet items. If you plan to hit the beach, trail, or anywhere that rains a lot, having something to place your wet items inside is ideal. We prefer something made from mesh as it enables them to dry quicker, which means you can use them comfortably sooner. Compared to a closed material like ripstop, the mesh allows air to easily permeate the water trapped in the fabric. Most importantly, the mesh is durable, so it can handle just about anything you throw its way, from pants to boots.

Another use for the sacks that we mentioned earlier is adding segmentation to a large travel backpack or duffel bag. As we said above, the sacks are great for separating outfits and clothing. To take things a step further, you could organize everything inside a pack without organization using these sacks.

Clothes, cables, and even tech can be organized using these pouches. The variety in sizing lends itself to their dynamic use, although the lack of padding doesn’t make a ton of sense for un-cased tech or fragile items you want to keep safe. If you have a huge duffel bag like the Peak Design Travel Duffel 65L, sacks like these can make the vast main compartment feel much more manageable.

Overall, we’re very happy with how the Sea to Summit Mesh Sack performs in day-to-day activities. It isn’t the perfect piece of gear for every task, but in a pinch, it can be used for a wide variety of uses, as we’ve been over.