Three weeks in October, starting in Lisbon and finishing in the Scottish Highlands, so I need a rain shell and one warm layer as well as normal clothes. I'm trying to decide between a single 40L that goes everywhere with me, or a 20L I can carry on my chest with a 12L packable for day hikes. Budget is about 150 and I can only buy one new bag. What decides it in practice?
The honest constraint here isn't volume, it's the warm layer. A synthetic or down midlayer that packs to the size of a grapefruit fits either setup. A fleece does not, and that alone can push a 20L over. Buy the packable insulation first and then the bag question gets easier.
20L for three weeks with a rain shell and a warm layer is doable but you'll be washing every second night and you'll have nothing spare when something is wet. I did 18 days out of 22L in shoulder season and enjoyed most of it, but I was doing laundry in a sink in a hostel in Inverness at 11pm and it wasn't a highlight.
Same experience, and the bit people underestimate is drying. Scotland in October is not going to dry your socks overnight in a stone-walled B&B.
If you can only buy one bag, buy the one that fits the smaller airline sizer you'll encounter, then flex volume with a compression strap. A 40L that squashes to 30 is more useful than a 20L that can't grow.
Chest-carrying a 20L on a hiking day is fine, chest-carrying it through three airports in October with a shell tied to the outside is miserable. Small thing, but I'd weight it.
@switchback_sid · 7mo ago · 3 replies
Decide it on how many nights you sleep in each place. If you're moving every second night, a single bag wins because you never repack two systems and nothing gets left in the other bag. If you have two or three bases and do day trips out of them, the 20L plus daypack is much nicer because your day bag isn't a half-empty 40L flopping around. For a Lisbon to Highlands trip with a warm layer, I'd take the 40L and a 10L packable that lives in the lid, and skip the third bag.
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@switchback_sid · 7mo ago
Then 40L and be done. A packable daypack is 90g and 20 quid and covers the four-night stop.
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@hornworm_hunt · 7mo ago
Moving every 2-3 nights for the first half, then four nights in one place. So mostly the first case.
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