A great piece of gear

If you’re a savvy traveler (enjoy it while Saipan still has any airline service left) then you’ve learned to live out of a single “rollaway” suitcase that qualifies as a carry-on bag. In addition to that bag, most airlines allow you one other “personal” item, such as a briefcase or purse; this is the provision we use to tote our notebook computers. Well, on that note, after all these years on the road, I finally have a recommendation in this realm. So read on, Commonwealth Road Warriors, your travel-weary comrade has discovered a dandy piece of gear.

It’s been a tough quest. I’ve been tormented by the elusive goal of finding a notebook computer case that could do additional duty by holding some other stuff. Enough stuff, in fact, to serve on its own as an overnight bag for short excursions while on the road. I wanted the case to also fill the briefcase role, able to carry Manila folders, pens, a calculator, and business cards. The constraint, of course, is that such a bag would have to remain small enough, and have a strong enough form factor of “briefcase,” to still pass muster as a “personal” item.

That’s a tall order.

So over the years I’ve spent a fortune trying to find just the right thing. Stores never had anything close. So I blundered from one Internet pitfall to the next, buying cases that looked good on web sites, but that sucked irredeemably. Not wanting to pay the return postage, I’d simply give these bags away.

Overall, good luggage is very difficult to buy, and the demands of this particular mission seemed impossible.

Those of you with a preppy streak will be familiar with the stalwart canvas attaches sold by Lands End. Lands End has updated the concept for notebook computer use. I almost went this route, but I found something that is (for me, at least) more useful from a business called Cabela’s.

I first heard of Cabela’s from a helicopter pilot at Coral Ocean Point, who was always well-outfitted for adventurous excursions to the Northern Islands. Cabela’s is a serious outfitter, frequented by professional adventurers, big game hunters, and so on. It’s accessible to normal folk as well, with a growing chain of huge retail stores in the mainland, and a global client base via its catalog and Internet presence.

And thus I introduce a really great piece of gear, the Cabela’s Outback Series Computer Attache. It is made of olive-green canvas and is trimmed with leather. It holds my computer, the power brick, my digital camera, my dozen other electronic doodads (alarm clock, SD card reader, mini-USB cable, flash drives, spare batteries, financial calculator, flashlight, cell phone, etc.), my shaving kit, one entire set of tightly rolled casual clothes (trousers, shirt, etc.), a book or two, and it also carries files, pens, and such in a handy organizer-thingy. Whew. That’s a lot of stuff.

It also has a padded computer sleeve, but I’m too stingy with space to use it.

This bag is serving me admirably. It’s well-built and masterfully designed. If you arrange the main zippers right, you can fit a small travel padlock through all of them; sure, that’s not Fort Knox, but it’s better than nothing. The bag is well-arrayed for carrying a passport and that kind of travel stuff. Also, it meets the critical criterion of being able to sit atop your rollaway suitcase as you pull it along, thanks to a slide-through flap that snugs around the suitcase handle.

I prefer plain black luggage, which matches my plain and bland personality. So, alas, the green and nubuck leather tones of this attache are far sportier than I’d really like. (Cabela’s does have a somewhat similar model in black, but it wasn’t similar enough for me.)

Anyway, the $79.99 price for my bag was easily worth it, especially considering the endless stream of useless $30 specials I was throwing my money away on.

For sake of comparison, I’ll note that Lands End’s canvas computer attache is $99.95, and it is, incidentally, available in black. Using the manufacturers’ dimensions as a basis for my figuring, I calculated that the Cabela’s bag has 32 percent more volume than the Lands End offering.

If you don’t travel often this may not seem like a big deal. But Saipan has a lot of professionals jetting to Asia and beyond, and many would find this item of use. This is one great piece of gear.