Checking a bag on a flight is always a gamble.
I used to work at an airline and I’ve seen checked bags go missing for months.
Sometimes they randomly turned up in unexpected places before being returned to the customer. One bag was found in the IT office, of all places.
After seeing that, I never check in a bag on my flights. I want my bag to be in my care at all times.
But that means that I need to have a bag that will be large enough to carry all my stuff, but compact enough to qualify as a carry on.
I was using a hardshell roller bag for awhile, but it lacked the capacity I was looking for. The wheels and handle took up too much space.
Then I found our MEI Voyageur in the back of one of our closets and it turned out to be the perfect carry on bag. I had bought it at a garage sale a couple of years before that and totally forgot about it.
Now I’m a huge fan.
So in this article, I’ll show you why this bag is awesome, give you a bit of history, show you where to buy one and end with a few alternatives, if the Voyageur isn’t your…bag.
There isn’t a whole lot of information on Mountain Equipment Inc. except for that it was started in 1973 and operated out of Fresno California in the final years of the company.
It seems like the company went out of business around 2017.
A 44 year run is amazing and a testament to the quality of the bags they made.
According to their Yelp profile, they claim to be the first company to make “travel packs”.
These were meant to combine the capacity of a suitcase with the ease of carry of a backpack.
The internal backpack frame and padded straps made it super easy to carry heavy loads. But the backpack straps could be tucked away for easy storage and the bag could also be carried like a duffel bag with a shoulder strap.
Some say that the Voyageur is the grandfather of the modern travel backpack/duffel design that is so popular today.
Based on my research, I would agree.
I can personally attest to how comfortable these bags are, even with a heavy load.
We did the rim-to-rim hike in the Grand Canyon and I carried our tent, a sleeping bag, food, clothes and water. My wife also carried a bunch of stuff and she had no problem.
My back never got sore from the weight and I didn’t have any hot spots from the bag rubbing on my back.
The waist strap does a great job of holding the bag in place and the back support is super comfortable, mostly because of the curved internal frame.
Since the official MEI website is no longer around, the actual specs and names of their bags are impossible to know with any certainty.
MEI allowed buyers to do a lot of customization when they ordered, so I’ve noticed quite a bit of variation in the design of bags out there. That also makes getting the exact names of each model a little trickier.
So to keep things simple, I’m going to call the bags with the stowable backpack straps, shoulder strap, open flat design and internal frame, Voyageurs.
They all basically function the same, with the only major difference being size, so I’m going to put them into the same group.
With that said, here are the specs on the 2 bags that we have.
Here is the smaller Voyageur that we own.
It is the perfect carry on size at 37 liters.
Keep in mind that the maximum carry on size is 45 liters, so this is well under the limit.
Both of these bags have tear away day packs on the front that are great for short hikes or everyday carry. They are held on by 2 zippers that go down the length of the day pack.
The tear away bag on the smaller Voyageur doesn’t have a zippered pocket in the front. I wish this one had the pocket, but it’s still very handy.
When the pack is attached to the Voyageur, it serves as a small external front pocket for the larger bag.
The back of the tear away bag has a pocket that the straps can be tucked in when not in use.
It can also be used to store your phone or anything else you want easy access to.
The bottom of the Voyageur has attachment points for a sleeping bag or blanket.
Both bags have this feature.
The side carry handle is made of leather and there are attachment points for the shoulder strap. I forgot to take a picture of the shoulder straps, but they are padded and very well built.
On the inside, there are only 2 restraint straps.
Even though this bag is soft sided and doesn’t have pockets on the inside, the frame on the bottom gives the bag enough structure to make it easy to pack and carry.
There is a grab/carry handle on the top of the bag, which makes it easy to pull it out from the overhead bin on flights.
Look at how thick that strap is. They don’t make them like that anymore.
The internal backpack frame bars are accessible from the inside of the bag.
They can be removed to make the bag easier to wash.
Here’s what the back of the bag looks like with the backpack straps deployed.
They can be tucked in and zippered up when not in use.
Although the padded waist straps are not taken out in this picture, they are inside the zippered pockets at the bottom of the bag.
Take a look at the bigger bag to see the waist straps in more detail.
As you can see, we have used this bag a lot and it’s still going strong.