I type this post with a heavy heart. After 14 years and 40 countries, I've given away my trusty Gregory Chaos backpack. This was the first and only one I bought as I began traveling the world on my own.
It has been beaten up, kicked across countless bus station and airport floors, thrown atop buses, and tossed in and out of many a boat. Yes, it's a bit dirty, but it's still fully functional. I have no doubt it'll last longer on Earth than me.
I donated it to a hostel, which will give it to the local community. Why did the guy who had been blogging about backpacking for six years give it away?
Lower back pain. It struck a few days after I arrived in Lima, following an arduous 26-hour bus ride from La Paz, Bolivia. It started as mild discomfort, but when it didn't go away after a few weeks, I went to see a doctor. He ordered X-rays and proceeded to point out the areas where the bones in my lower back didn't quite come together like normal.
It's a congenital variation I was born with and will have to live with for the rest of my life. It's neither serious nor is there anything that can be done about it. I'm left with the knowledge that it makes me prone to bouts of lower back pain.
Instead of surgery or drugs, I need to focus on:
- Improving my posture.
- Strengthening and stretching the right muscles.
- Reducing the amount of time I spend sitting at any one time.
- Taking a protective approach toward lifting and carrying heavy things.
As much as I wanted to switch to a daypack and travel super light, ANY weight on my shoulders was aggravating my lower back pain. So I switched to the dark side and bought the Overhead by The North Face.
Although it was more expensive than the other options, it appears sturdy, durable, and a bit more stylish. The red and black are the same colors as my Gregory backpack.
There's less space in the Overhead than in my backpack, so this change still forces me to get rid of some clothes I've been toting around South America for the last year.
One of the things I like about this product is the second, smaller pouch into which I can slip my 13" MacBook Air laptop if I want to take the bag as carry-on luggage. I prefer this option, even if I don't always use it.
The rubber handle offers a good grip, and a red plastic button on the side allows you to extend and compress the handle. It works very smoothly, at least for now.
It might seem like a small detail, but including The North Face's motto on the handle won big points with me. If I can't be toting around a well-worn backpack to broadcast my adventures, at least these words will help instead. Unless The North Face has become so utterly commercial by this point, it means diddly-squat. Either way, it makes me happy.
Are you visiting my blog for a backpack, not wheeled luggage? Read this review and see the benefits of getting a versatile one.
After taking it on a test run from Lima to Medellin, I noticed several pros and cons to using wheeled luggage.
Pro's
- Less stress on shoulders, neck, and back in most travel circumstances.
- I feel like a grown-up.
- Looks more professional.
- Easier to find stuff, pack, and unpack.
Con's
- You can't move as quickly and easily as you can with a backpack. For example, it's harder to bypass pedestrians on a crowded sidewalk.
- Rolling the luggage on a smooth airport floor is nice, but it can be bumpy on rough and cracked sidewalks.
- You still have to lift it and put it in taxis or overhead luggage bins, so it's not a complete savior for my lower back.
- You can't easily walk down a beach, forest, or jungle trail. You'd have to carry it, which would be way more stressful than a backpack.
- The zippers in the main compartment do not curve to the bottom of the bag, so you can't fully flip the cover 180 degrees. This makes packing and unpacking the bag a little more cumbersome than necessary.
As you can tell, it's still a toss-up for me regarding which is better. But until my back is pain-free again, and possibly from here on out, I don't have a choice. If I'm going Ieling, I want it to be pain-free.
