I first reviewed the Journeyman in May of 2021, and I followed up again in June of 2023 to tell you how it’s my favorite backpack. Now, I want to talk about how that same bag has aged, held up, and where it stands after much more use two years later.
The short version: the Filson Journeyman is a really great backpack, and I am a huge fan. I use this bag a ton and it’s not going to be sold any time soon.
If you haven’t already, take a look at one or both of those previous write ups, I am going to dive right into the good and bad of it.
What I Appreciate the Most
Here’s what keeps selling me on this bag:
- It is a perfectly sized backpack. It holds a lot, but doesn’t ever look huge. It fits on my back well, and fits on a smaller person well too. It’s sized nearly ideally for a catchall style backpack.
- The bag is nice and floppy. Typically, this would be a downside, but when you want something that doesn’t give away its true capacity, you want floppy. The Tin Cloth is substantial enough that when mixed with the Rugged Twill, the floppiness of the bag doesn’t turn into sloppy like a packable backpack might. It’s a natural vibe for the bag.
- It carries well enough, while not inviting fiddly-ness or structure. The better the bag can handle weight, the more structure and straps you get on the harness. The Journeyman is dead simple and it carries weight well enough that I can wear it all day long, even hiking, and still not be bothered by it. Yet there’s a single adjustment point and nothing else. The straps are wide, but not thick, and the load is handled comfortably by the straps.
- The bag has a single zipped inner pocket, and it is great. It’s positioned in a spot where it’s very easy to get to it, and it holds a decent amount of gear. No need for tactical mesh or other nonsense, just one good secure pocket.
- Large front pocket is an ideal stash pocket, it will annoy most people at first until you realize this is your quick access pocket on the bag. It probably holds 2L or so of gear in it, and when empty it looks small. Once I started to use this for a stash pocket instead of a dedicated gear spot — the bag started to really work for me. Gloves, umbrella, pocket dump at the security checkpoint — all great uses for this pocket.
- It’s the perfect backpack for when you need a backpack, but you are not sure what you need that backpack for. Office? Travel? A hike? Grocery run? Beer run?
- It carries a lot more than you think, because the flop hides the capacity. And it looks empty when it is empty. That’s an underrated feature, which more structured bags like the GR1, GR2, Evade, all fail to look and feel empty when they are.
- The materials on this bag look the worst on the day you buy the bag, and they look progressively better every time you use the bag. It’s like how brand new denim looks a little off, but some wear and variation gets beat into them, and things look just right. Same thing, but on a backpack.
- Speaking of looks, this doesn’t look polished, or prim and proper. At the same time it doesn’t look like crap, or cheap. It looks nice, in a way where you can’t put your finger on it, but how a movie prop manager might have a lead character carry it, even though that character supposedly works for minimum wage and you are like “hold up, how do they afford that bag?”
There’s so many great things, but I’ll limit myself to those.
What I Am Bothered By
Not everything is perfect with this bag, so let’s get to the parts which bother me a bit:
- It’s a little hard to get your device in out of the bag. The device pocket is inside at the rear of the bag, and you need to pull a lot of the bag out of the way to get to that pocket.
- The brass zippers are smooth operating, but aggressive against the back of your hand, knit items, and your electronics. You need to take care moving things in and out.
- All of the compartments on this bag need further organization to keep from being a black hole. So some pouches are required.
- The open top pocket on the front of the main compartment is useless, and gets in the way constantly as it is just a sagging thing piece of cotton (perhaps the biggest miss on this bag).
- The top “handle” is a cruel joke and only works for hanging the bag.
- I’d love the leather strap attachments to be cotton webbing instead.
That’s it, that’s the limit of my ‘bothered by’ issues.
Current Advice
Since those last couple of posts, this bag has made into the Best List each year. And rightfully so. This would be one of the first bags I would rebuy, if I lost all my bags. It’s simply fantastic — overly simple, but hugely functional. I love the looks and materials on top of all of that.
It’s the best backpack you can buy for day to day. It’s the premium variant of a classic Jansport — and I can’t think of higher praise than that.