Affordable vs. Premium Day Hiking Backpacks: A Comparison
As they say, you get what you pay for. And when it comes to outdoor gear, it’s often true—investing in quality gear, from hiking shoes to rain jackets is rarely regrettable. Whereas going the bargain bin route on crucial items often is. But that doesn’t mean the most expensive outdoor gear will always be a multitude better than its middle tier counterpart. In fact, if you know what to look for, high-performance, reliable gear can be found at just about every price point. (Better yet, shop used outdoor gear to source second hand at a fraction of the price). In this article, we will discuss premium vs affordable day hiking backpacks. And I will help you make the tough purchasing choice of how much to spend on a hiking daypack by going through price comparisons, pros and cons, features, as well as other considerations.
How do I know? Besides having 25 years experience guiding and testing hiking gear, I once got smoked by a dude in a beat-up old Jansport daypack during a 50-mile endurance race. Right when I was reaching my stride in my thousand dollar ultralight kit, the guy turned to me, said it was really nice chatting, and then proceeded to absolutely DROPPED THE HAMMER on me while his affordable little daypack jiggled off in the morning light. He left me in the dust and finished the race well ahead of me. The moral of this story: you do not need to spend a ton of money on your gear to be an incredible athlete, you just need to find the right gear for you.
As with any piece of performance gear, finding what fits your body type, your experience, and your pursuits (not to mention your style) is the most important factor when determining what to buy. Most premium daypacks are jammed full of comfort details, super useful pockets, and features that keep you hydrated and happy while you hike. They can also last forever if you don’t send them down a granite cliff face or lose them in a creek, so the large one time investment could pan out to dozens of years and hundreds of hikes of enjoyment. Or a simple Jansport could do just the trick.
It’s a nuanced decision—the right call will be different from hiker to hiker and budget to budget. To help, I will use my guiding, outdoor retail, and gear testing experience as well as the knowledge I have gleaned from the dozens of daypacks I have tested for magazines like Outside to help you make the right call on your best hiking daypack. In this article, I am going to help you decide whether to splurge on a premium daypack by breaking down the differences between budget and affordable backpacks, helping spell out some pros and cons of both price points, and going through the features you could expect from each.
Source: https://www.fieldmag.com/articles/affordable-daypacks-for-hiking
