- In this video,
we're going to be taking a look at the Tortuga Setout,
a massive, maximum legal carry-on size
backpack for travel.
A lot of people in the Pack Hacker
audience have requested that we review this pack,
so we're really excited to get into it
and share our thoughts with you.
I'm Tom, the founder of Pack Hacker.
We share our travel trips and tricks,
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Let's jump right into the Tortuga Setout review.
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Tortuga tees up the Setout to be a
'just right' travel backpack for travelers.
It's accessible to the average
traveler wanting to carry everything in a backpack
with the familiarities of a suitcase.
The Homebase, which is another pack in their line,
is designed to be a little bit more
lightweight for minimalist packers and shorter trips,
but this thing is the maximum legal
size for a carry-on bag.
They definitely went all out with it.
It's a little bit bulky but that's the intention of it.
So you can fit a bunch of stuff inside of this pack
and carry it on for the airlines
that allow for larger carry-on bags.
This thing comes in at 45 liters
and we'd agree with that.
It's definitely super roomy and
it also comes in at 3.3 pounds
with the attached hip belt.
In contrast to Tortuga's other two bags,
the Outbreaker and the Homebase,
which are made with sail cloth,
the Setout is made with 900D heathered polyester.
Polyester is cheaper than nylon and sail cloth
which brings the Setout a little bit
lower than the Outbreaker and the Homebase in price.
As an added bonus to that polyester,
it's kind of the multicolored heathered pattern here
and that's going to help with dirts and scuffs.
They're not going to show up quite as
much on this multicolored kind of design going on here.
In contrast to the sail cloth,
especially the Homebase which we've observed,
that picks up a lot of aesthetic scuffs really fast.
There's some rip-stop nylon on the interior of this thing
and it's going to help with the weather resistance of the pack
as well as some of that durability.
With the polyester,
you don't quite get as crinkly of a texture
as you do with the sail cloth
present in their other two packs.
With the bulk,
we feel that the features on this
thing look decently slick and refined.
Of course, it's just a massive travel backpack,
but it blends in well with an urban environment.
Depending on how full you pack this thing,
you may be able to slide it under the seat in front of you,
but it's going to do the best if you
use an overhead bin when you're on the plane.
Lastly, the Tortuga branding is
displayed minimally throughout the pack
and we definitely like the small
details that they've added without
screaming Tortuga on everything.
Up here on the straps,
you've got very minimalistic kind
of branding going on there and
then also on the front here of course,
we've got the little Tortuga turtle shell going on.
To round off the materials used,
everything they used here is pretty durable.
We have some beefy YKK zippers
as well as Duraflex plastic and Duraflex buckles going on.
We definitely like to see that
and there's also injection molded foam
that we're going to get into in a second.
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Let's start with the external features of the pack.
Let's start with the compression straps here.
Overall, these are expertly placed
and they don't cover up the zippers.
You can see here that they're basically attached,
not getting in the way of that zipper.
You can move freely throughout
the pack to open it up fully,
or you can kind of just get that
front flap open without adjusting
and fiddling with the compression straps at all.
This is great overall but when the bag is fully packed,
we did notice a stress point on the zipper
near the compression strap.
We think because the bag is so wide,
it might be adding additional stress to that zipper.
Not something to be immediately concerned about.
We didn't have any issues with it.
With that repeated stress on that zipper,
it may be kind of tough in terms of durability.
Again, zippers are some of the weakest part of backpacks
and those tend to break first.
Good thing these are high quality zippers.
There is a top handle here and
a side handle here for some quick grabs.
Again, not super structured and sturdy.
You can see that there's a little bit of give here,
but there is some anchoring here going on
to add to that durability.
Again, this is going to be good for just quick grabs,
going short distances, popping this thing
in the overhead bin above you,
or taking it on with you onto a bus or public transit.
Again, we wouldn't really recommend this in briefcase mode.
One thing Tortuga does that we really love
is that they have this separate
kind of strap going on up here to
hang the bag up if you'd like to.
There are two clips on the outside here,
maybe for a messenger strap,
not really sure why you'd want to wear it that way,
but there are two clips here for that
or maybe securing anything else
that you'd like to secure there.
On the side opposite of the handle,
there is a lay flat water bottle pocket.
Again, this looks good and slick, it's minimal.
Low profile when not in use.
When you do need to use it,
there's some reinforced elasticity
above here that's going to be able
to hold that water bottle in place.
Roomy sides.
We can fit a large Swell bottle in there.
Definitely a good size.
Let's move on to my personal favorite
part of the backpack, the harness system.
These are injection molded foam straps
and they're kind of tricky.
There's a couple things going on here.
Basically there's a gradient, so it's very thick up here
and then very thin down here.
Definitely some custom shaping going on there
which is pretty cool.
It kind of has these holes in it and this mesh
for some added breathability.
Kind of reminds me of Nike Air technology
or something like that.
To add to that, these straps are kind of curved
so they nicely contour to your body.
There's a fully loaded sternum strap here that's adjustable.
They have a little keeper here
to kind of help manage that excess strap
so it doesn't hang off too much.
Also, these straps un-clip nicely
and stow right into this Velcro system right here.
The one thing that we did have an issue with here
is that on two occasions,
these straps just randomly came off.
What we found out is that this
little metal clasp down here at the bottom
actually should be facing out.
This totally makes sense if you
observe where the carabiner clip pulls
on where's it looped into.
As you can see when you're pulling on it,
that strap can make its way under that silver buckle
without you wanting it to based
on the pressure that's being put on it.
As long as you have that silver clip
faced towards the outside,
you're likely not going to run into that issue.
To wrap up the harness system,
there is a beefy, comfortable hip belt attachment
that you can use.
Tortuga does mention on their product specs,
we really like that they do this,
but this is meant for 17 to 19 inch torsos.
I'm about a 19.25 inch torso and
this hip belt is more of a stomach belt to me.
It doesn't fit me super well.
It does distribute weight but it's
over my belly button and isn't necessarily comfortable.
Just make sure that your torso is the
right side before grabbing this.
In contrast to the Outbreaker,
the hip belt is not adjustable.
We were also wondering why Tortuga
used Velcro on the hip belt instead
of a metal mechanism that they had down here.
Durability wise, not sure if it'll last quite as long,
but I'm sure there's some kind of
reason as to why they did this.
Maybe they can answer in the comments.
Lastly, on the back of this,
there's some nice padding going on here
that's going to add a bit of airflow.
It's a nice mesh here.
Of course with backpacks,
you're usually going to have that sweaty back,
but Tortuga has done a great job here with
the consideration of this.
Overall, I would say the harness system
is a pretty comfortable carry.
There's one thing also again that
I kind of want to nitpick with this.
This thing tends to sag down a little bit
on your back when it's full of stuff inside.
I get that they tried to add a little
extra room at the top here to help distribute the weight,
but maybe they could benefit from a
stiffer frame shin on the inside.
It's definitely pretty flimsy or
potentially some load lifters at the top here
to kind of pull that top of the
pack a little bit closer to your upper back.
Again, I'm not a designer.
At Pack Hacker we just review these things
so I'm not really sure if that's the exact solve,
but definitely a nitpick and something
that we wanted to surface to you.
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Moving onto the interior of this pack,
let's jump right into this YKK #5 zipper
and this kind of quick-grab pocket on the top.
It's about 7.5 inches deep.
Again, good for quick-grabs if you're
going through security at the airport.
Just stuff everything in here, boom!
Hit your bag right through the conveyor belt, good to go.
If we move back here, just take a look quick at the
laptop and tablet compartment going on.
Again, kind of wish that frame sheet
had a little bit more structure for
maybe a little bit of a better carry.
There's a nice kind of Velcro mechanism
here that's going to hold your laptop secure.
Laptops up to 15 inches can go in here,
then there's a little pocket in
the front that can help hold tablets.
You can fit some other kind of flat items in here overall,
but we'd just recommend that mainly for the laptop.
Let's zip that right back up.
Move this around to the front pocket here,
which is super nice organization pocket.
Up here we've got this carabiner clip,
which again is going to match that
carabiner clip that we see on these straps on the outside.
Good for keys or anything that you
just want to hang off here free floating.
Again we have a pocket up here, a zipped pocket.
Again, 7.5 inches deep,
about the same depth as this pocket out here
but a little bit less in width.
Any smaller items,
you can definitely just toss them in there.
Then we have this little pouch here for
some additional separation and organization.
Moving onto my favorite part.
I think Tortuga does a super great job
with the organization and the interior of packs.
They're a team of travelers.
They definitely know what they want
and I know they survey their audiences well
to see what they'd like to see in a pack.
I'm personally a big fan of what
they got going on in here.
We have three spots here for pens, pencils,
maybe a stylus, something like that.
A passport would fit perfectly into this pocket here.
We have this mesh and elastic pocket here,
which is the same exact material
that's used on the exterior for the water bottle pocket.
And then we've got kind of three
credit card spots right here.
And another larger pocket right here
which is going to be good for added organization.
Gotta get those points when you're
traveling and no foreign transaction fees on your cards, right?
In addition to that,
we have some room here at the bottom.
I'd recommend putting some slimmer
kind of pouches or packing cubes in there.
Moving on to the main compartment,
we have these #8 YKK zippers here
with some little grabbable zipper pulls which are great.
Good way to tell those two pockets apart
since they do have different pull designs.
We open up this main compartment and on the inside,
we actually have the Tortuga Setout
packable Day Pack as well.
We think this thing is really great.
It's kind of a miniaturized version.
It's got a similar aesthetic.
A little bit of different material going on here,
but it's good to kind of pair this with this pack
because this thing is huge.
When you get to your destination,
you don't necessarily want to be
walking around outside carrying this thing all day.
This little Setout packable Day Pack
is going to be a good solve for that.
Just unpack this, maybe throw a couple packing cubes
inside of this thing and boom, you're good to go.
'Cause you can see here,
that this is just a massive compartment going on here
and it's going to be good for people
that are used to traveling with suitcases.
It's got that similar organizational style.
Just kind of one giant bucket.
Then you've got these mesh pockets up here.
These aren't necessarily 3D mesh pockets.
They don't stick out,
but you can actually fit quite a bit in here -
from t-shirts to socks, to things that are
a little bit less bulky, but you
just want some additional organization width.
We recommend packing cubes for this main area
because just putting everything in here willy-nilly
is going to be a little bit tough,
especially with these sides that
aren't necessarily structured, this nylon and polyester.
Kind of gives pretty easily.
It's just much easier to chuck in a couple packing cubes,
a lot easier to handle when you're traveling.
[upbeat music playing]
At the time of this review,
we've been testing the Tortuga Setout
for about three months across Detroit,
Minneapolis, New York, and California.
We wanted to make sure to give it a pretty thorough test
and a good run before we did a review on it here.
The reason being is that in the Tortuga Homebase
that's made out of sail cloth,
it's actually right up there in the upper right hand corner,
we noticed a lot of aesthetic
blemishes that happened on it.
We wanted to make sure that the
Setout didn't follow that same fate.
Overall, we gotta say that it passed.
There are a couple minor smudges
going on here but nothing too noticeable.
With that heathered kind of gray pattern going on here,
it sort of just melts away into the background.
Any light blemishes or scratches
are easily going to be covered up by that.
Based on the materials used, all high quality.
We assume that this Tortuga Setout
is going to last for months to come, years,
on a ton of different trips.
To wrap this thing up with some pros and cons,
Tortuga does a really great job
at thinking through the design and the features of the pack.
That heathered polyester is great for the aesthetic.
The suitcase-like interior will have
travelers feeling at home that have
used roller luggage in the past.
Definitely has a good travel backpack vibe going on.
Moving onto some of the cons.
The hip belt is not adjustable
and may not fit all people.
There is also some sag off of your back
when the pack is fully loaded and the
frame sheet in the back is somewhat flimsy.
We preferred it to be a little bit thicker.
Overall, the Tortuga Homebase is a great
option for maximum legal size carry-on.
It's just right for the average traveler.
The smart organizational features
and design outweigh the couple of nitpicks
that we've found with the pack.
Thanks for taking a look at our review
on the Tortuga Setout.
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Thanks for checking this out.
We'll see you in the next video.
We share our travel tips and tricks ... we do guides ...
(giggles)
(female laughs)
Wow, he's wearing the same t-shirt in every video.
It's just Outlier, I just like it, okay?
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