- Hey it's Tom from Pack Hacker.
And in this video we're going to be taking a look
at the Cotopaxi Allpa 35 liter travel bag.
This has been highly requested from a lot of people
in the Pack Hacker audience, maybe even you.
So we're excited to check it out.
At Pack Hacker, we're a team of frequent travelers
that test gear all the time.
So if you're new here, consider subscribing.
Let's jump right into the Cotopaxi Allpa review.
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Cotopaxi is the name of an active stratovolcano in Ecuador.
It's in the Andes Mountains and in addition to that name,
they've also got a bit of a mascot.
It is a llama like you can see here on the pack.
They put it on a lot of their packs as well.
In addition to that, Cotopaxi also does some good
in the world donating 2% of their sales to causes
like the International Rescue Committee, Educate Girls,
and Proximity Designs which aims to provide health education
and livelihood in developing countries.
They do great work, but does the quality
of their product line up with that?
Let's jump in and find out.
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Cotopaxi offers some funky colors in a lot of their packs.
The Allpa is available in true blue and black.
We're not sure why it's not called true black,
but it's true blue and black.
I've personally been testing the blue version a couple times
and then one of our contributors,
Tynin, has been testing the black version
on two international trips to Jordan and Cuba.
There's really no question that you've got a Cotopaxi
pack on when you take a look at a lot of their branding
and the color choices that they use.
You've got this blue color and this
kind of orange reddish color that creates a very big
pop of contrast.
Now normally, we're reviewing a lot of other packs
that have been pretty subtle,
like if you take a look at like GORUCK, Aer, Minaal, right?
You've got very slick,
kind of considered minimalistic designs,
and this has that from like a feature perspective.
However, these pops of color kind of liven
and brighten it up a little bit.
We think Cotopaxi has done a great job at this
without making something, you know, like multicolored
and too crazy; like it's still got a lot
of subtly going on to the look.
The exterior has this TPU coated polyester going on
and that's going to provide like kind of a rubbery feel.
It's going to add a lot of durability with that coating
and provide like that slicker kind of
more rubbery look on this pack.
And on the sides we've got 1680D nylon here.
It's a ballistic weave, so a ballistic nylon,
pretty durable stuff.
There is duraflex plastic buckles on this thing throughout,
and then we've got nice YKK zippers.
So all the materials they've used
on this pack are of pretty high quality,
but that does come at a weight expense.
So we're looking at three pounds and seven ounces
just for the Allpa itself when it's empty.
The pack comes in at 20 by 12 by 8 inches
which is going to be compatible with most airlines
as far as carry-on specifications goes.
And with that space the Allpa offers 35 liters
of space neatly organized inside
which we're going to get into coming up.
Cotopaxi also offers a bundle
that has a bunch of different stuff in it
in addition to just the Allpa, so we got our hands
on all that.
We're not going to cover everything in this video,
but they've got like a laundry kind of mesh pocket
where you can put dirty clothes that's removable, a rainfly,
and they've also got their Batac packable day pack
as well as a couple other packing cubes.
The packable day pack is really crazy -
it's kind of like a rainbow going on.
Again, just hit the thumbs up in the first comment
if you want to see us do a review on that as well.
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Alright so starting with the backside of this pack,
we have these four lash straps kind of going around.
Again Cotopaxi, with that brand name,
they've kind of got this nice neon color going on.
We think that's tasteful.
It's going to be up to you whether you like it or not.
In addition to the lash straps here,
you've also got 'em kind of at the top of the pack -
sort of all over the sides of this pack.
So that's going to be good to put the high visibility,
bright yellow rain cover on to.
They're also good for, you know,
hooking carabiner clips off of
and just hanging out anything to dry,
you know, on the back of your pack.
Again this TPU coated material here
does pretty well with moisture.
So if you've got like a wet board shorts or wet swim trunks
kind of hanging off of here, it's not going to do too much harm
and then soak into the pack either.
Additionally Cotopaxi says that you can lock this
to fixed objects, so maybe you want to lock it
to a pole or something.
Also these lash straps are good for the mesh
water bottle pocket that Cotopaxi provides -
it's detachable. I like the way that they've done this
because not everybody uses a water bottle pocket
on their packs. So Cotopaxi gives you that option
versus forcing you to have it installed
and always there.
All four sides of this pack offer a carry handle.
And some may think that's overkill,
but we actually found that to be really nice.
So no matter which angle this pack is at you can grab it.
You know, whether it's in the overhead bin
on the airplane, whether it's in the back of a taxicab
car or a car, whether it's just laying on the ground
and you just want to grab it.
Handles on all four sides of this thing make it
really accessible and easy to grab
from whatever angle it is that you're at.
One other thing that Cotopaxi has provided here
is the ability to sort of lock your zippers.
And when you zip this all the way up
you can actually weave the zipper pull under this band
that they have here and it acts as a bit
of a security feature.
And what this does is it prevents somebody
from just coming up to you quick, ripping that zipper open,
and grabbing all of your stuff.
So this little loop does a good job
at kind of stopping that from happening.
Moving onto the harness system,
we have an air mesh back panel here
with some very prominent Cotopaxi branding going on.
Moving on to the strap system,
they are slightly curved here.
They use a high density foam that's comfortable to carry
for long periods of time. Adjustable sternum strap here
so you easily get whatever fit it is that you need.
And you can unbuckle the strap.
It's a duraflex buckle, high quality plastic goin' on and
easily just stow that away when not in use.
If you're getting on a plane, hopping in the back of a car,
whatever it is that you're doing
where you don't want all this excess straps
kind of flapping around.
So everything up until this point has been pretty positive
with the harness system. So for me personally,
I have a 19 1/4" length torso
and I'm 6' 2". And the hip belt for me is more
of a stomach belt so it doesn't really fit me that well.
It doesn't really do what it's supposed to do.
But I would say if you have anything
from an 18" or a lower torso,
it's going to be useful for you.
Another thing with the hip belt that we're not super into
is the pocket on the side. So there's not really much room
here meaning this isn't a 3D pocket.
It doesn't necessarily stick out,
so there's not going to be a lot of give in there.
This is going to be okay for things that are more flexible -
maybe you can put a card in here or a paper map -
but if you want to put you're phone in here
it's not really the best use case for it.
Because if you're actually going to utilize this thing
and wear it as a hip belt, when you start to curve this
around your body you definitely want it to be able to curve -
you don't want like just a phone sticking in there
and kind of blocking that curve.
So there's definitely some improvements to be made
on this hip belt. So for me personally when I'm using it,
I'm kind of hit or miss on hip belts.
It's easy enough to kind of stow this away
into this harness hiding system
and then you can just kind of forget about the hip belt.
So Cotopaxi has done a great job
at letting you be able to hide that.
And me personally? I'm hiding it all the time.
If you have a smaller torso you may find it useful
even with that kind of slightly odd hip belt pocket.
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Moving on to the inside of the pack.
Starting with the front pocket.
If you just open that up and take a look,
you can see there's some nice organization
going on inside of here. So this area kind of outside
of this mesh pocket is going to be good
for a medium sized DAKA Pouch of a size.
We found that to fit in really well here.
And then there's a nice YKK zippered mesh pocket
that you can open up, and we have this
kind of bright yellow rip-stopping nylon material.
It's nice when bag companies use brighter colors
on the inside of their packs 'cause it's easier
to see your gear, whatever it is that you're kind of shoving
inside of here.
So big mesh pocket, we've got a rip stop pocket here
that's going to be about the width of your passport,
and then another pocket here
which is going to be good for sunglasses.
This isn't necessarily a quick grab pocket;
it's behind two levels of zippers.
But we do like the organization that's gone into it,
and the thinking they've done with this front area.
And one more thing,
they've got a plastic key chain-like thing sitting here.
Nothing too special, you can clip your keys to it.
We like when packs put like metal rings here.
We think that it's a little bit more high quality.
Moving onto the laptop compartment on the side -
there's a bright pink zipper area so that you know
that it's a laptop.
There's another pocket on this side -
it's a quick access pocket for the main clamshell
which we'll get into in a second.
But that's going to be blue in color
so you can kind of tell the difference,
create a mental model in your head
for what these colors mean to get to what gear.
This is the laptop sleeve.
It's going to be pretty good.
There's some slight padding here.
The frame sheet is like a decent, decently flimsy
but you've got a little bit of structure there
so easily slide your laptop in.
Also a bit of a false bottom here
so if you drop your bag it's not necessarily going to hit
right on the edge of your laptop.
There's a little bit of space
between the actual bottom of this
and the laptop compartment.
One thing that we did find with the laptop compartment is
that with an Incase on the newest MacBook Pro
(an Incase case), it's a very snug fit.
So they may have been better off
making this a little bit larger.
It's going to fit the best with no case on your laptop at all -
but yeah, it'll definitely fit a 15 inch laptop.
They've also got a separate velcroed compartment here
that's going to be good for tablets or smaller tech devices.
The main clamshell of this pack opens up like a suitcase.
So if you're familiar with suitcase travel,
it's going to be very familiar.
I like that they've integrated this
kind of look and feel into a backpack.
Super fat, beefy YKK zipper to hold it up
so you know it's going to be durable.
Remember that main clamshell of a backpack is usually
the weakest point and the place
that breaks for most travelers.
So Cotopaxi has done a great job here
at picking a very large YKK zipper to keep everything nice,
durable, and sealed up.
So again we just fold that open here,
and you're going to be greeted with kind of two panels.
So on the inside we have a large mesh pocket
on the right hand side - we just open that right up
and you have basically a giant bucket.
So here it's going to be good for packing cubes,
larger items like shoes, sweaters, you know,
larger articles of clothing are going to do well on this side.
There are two compression straps as well.
And we're just going to unbuckle those.
You can see here that we also have the Batac Day Pack
that can come with some of the bundles
that they offer on their website.
So this thing is super colorful!
I feel like it looks like I'm going to like a festival
or a rave or something like that.
Not sure how I feel about it personally,
but your mileage may vary.
So the right hand side - giant bucket,
two compression straps that you can kind of help keep
your stuff a little bit more compact.
We usually recommend packing cubes
so you can just keep those nice and secure.
And then we have a bit of a hidden pocket here.
It's about three credit cards wide by one credit card deep,
and there's a lot of depth here.
So you could probably keep a lot of valuables in there
or maybe a couple socks, whatever it is that you end up
wanting to organize in there.
But it's a secure pocket because it's on the inside
of the pack. And remember you're going to have clothes
and a lot of other stuff in here
so it's going to be somewhat hidden.
Moving onto the left hand side, AKA the front of the pack -
we're going to have a similar mesh pocket,
but it's about two thirds the opening
of the large pocket on the right-hand side.
So it's going to go underneath these two other mesh pockets
here. You do still have the same amount of space pretty much,
but again, that's on the front of the pack
so you're going to want to put lighter items in here
if at all possible.
So typically we recommend putting the heavier stuff
closer to your back.
It keeps your center of gravity a little bit more even
and a little bit more like normal
how your body is in the first place,
and then lighter items in the front hand side of the pack.
So giant bucket here as well.
Also two additional mesh zippered pockets on the left hand
of the inside of the pack.
That's going to be good for tech items.
You've got the yellow again here
which is going to help you identify things
and it's going to make, you know, black or darker colored gear
a little bit more visible within the pack.
Also the rain fly within here fits perfectly,
that comes with the bag itself.
Good place to store that
if you do want to carry that around with you.
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One of our contributors, Tynin, has been testing this
on the road for about three months in his everyday life
and on trips. So he's taken it to Cuba as well as Jordan.
So we definitely have had a lot of experience with this pack.
So far so good!
A lot of the materials that Cotopaxi uses are very durable
and high quality, so we haven't really run
into any issues as of yet.
So to wrap this thing up with some pros and cons.
The Cotopaxi Allpa has some ample space
and smartly-placed pockets both
on the interior and exterior of the pack.
It's solid.
All the durable materials come together
and make the Cotopaxi Allpa a solid pack.
It has a sleek and refined aesthetic
that's both playful and at the same time minimal,
so we think that they pulled these two elements together
to make a really great-looking pack.
Some of the cons, it's quite heavy for the size that it is.
The hip belt isn't super functional for taller users
and it's not removable either; at least it's hideable.
And the hip belt pockets are a little bit too snug
on the hip belt itself rendering them not super usable
for things like phones or stiffer objects,
better for flexible items.
[upbeat music playing]
The Cotopaxi Allpa 35 liter travel pack is
pleasantly hard to characterize.
It can function as both a hiking pack, a work bag,
or a travel pack.
After our tests we feel like it fits the travel
role pretty well.
With it's carry-on compliance, refined design,
and ample space the Allpa is a great choice.
While it may not be well received by taller users,
if you find the fit comfortable
you definitely won't be disappointed.
And for under two hundred bucks
it's definitely a solid choice.
Thanks for taking a look at our view
on the Cotopaxi Allpa 35.
I hope it was helpful to you.
Be sure to head over to packhacker.com/newsletter.
Sign up for that newsletter and never miss an update.
We'll see you in the next video.
Pocket we just open that ... wrong pocket.
Um?
Um, um, um, um, um?
Stradovalc, valcano?
Valcano. (laughs)
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