Peak Design Travel Weekender 25L Review – The One I’d Keep

I bought my Peak Design Travel Weekender 25L in Sage through the Kickstarter campaign, having already owned enough Peak Design equipment to have a pretty good idea what I was getting into. I have been a long-time fan of the company’s camera straps, particularly its sling straps, so there was already a degree of trust in the brand. Even so, I bought the Weekender with my own money, & after around three months of actual travel use I think it may be the most broadly useful of the three Peak Design travel bags I own.

That is an interesting conclusion because it is not necessarily the bag that has impressed me most as a piece of engineering – that honour goes to the Roller Pro Carry-On – but if I could keep only one of the Weekender, Roller Pro & Travel Backpack 45L, it would be the Weekender. Quite simply, I can see myself using it on more trips, & I like its relative simplicity.

What I bought the Weekender 25L for

My original idea was to use it either as a personal-item bag when flying or as a compact bag for shorter trips. In practice I would now describe it rather differently. I think of it as a small cabin bag that can sometimes get away with being treated as a personal item, rather than something I would confidently regard as an underseat bag.

It is quite a substantial 25L bag physically. I have never been challenged with it by an airline, but I am conscious that if someone decided to be strict about personal-item dimensions, I might have a problem. Mine normally ends up in the overhead locker anyway.

As a small cabin bag, though, it is brilliant.

The shape works, access is easy, it packs extremely well & the shoulder strap is genuinely comfortable. That last point matters because this is how I normally carry it rather than using the handles.

The packing-cube combination that really works

One of the things I have settled on very quickly is what I regard as the ideal packing arrangement for the 25L Weekender:

two Peak Design Small Packing Cubes plus one Peak Design Smedium Packing Cube.

They do not merely fit if you squeeze them into the available space; they fit neatly enough to feel like a deliberate layout.

My normal arrangement is one Small cube for underwear, another Small cube for shirts, T-shirts & long-sleeved T-shirts, then the Smedium for trousers & the other odds & ends. Using that combination I can realistically pack for around three days, perhaps four, depending on what I need.

Once those cubes are in, there is still a small amount of space remaining, but not masses. That actually suits the bag. I would rather have something compact that I know how to pack efficiently than a larger bag that tempts me to throw more into it simply because there is room.

It also keeps its appearance reasonably well when full. When it is not full, however, it is starting to become slightly floppy. That is probably the one thing I would change about the design. After only a few months it does not hold its shape quite as crisply as it did initially.

Importantly, that is almost entirely a cosmetic observation. It has not made the bag any less useful, harder to pack or more awkward to access. If Peak Design could find a way of retaining a little more structure without adding meaningful weight or complexity, I think the Weekender would be better for it.

What about carrying a laptop?

I have carried a 14-inch laptop in the Weekender, & it is possible, but this is not where the bag is at its best.

With my preferred two-Small-plus-one-Smedium packing-cube arrangement already inside, adding the laptop makes things tight. More importantly, removing the laptop can disturb that carefully packed cube arrangement.

Would I like Peak Design to solve that by adding a dedicated external laptop compartment?

Actually, no. One of the reasons I like the Weekender is because it remains relatively simple. I would rather preserve that simplicity & weight than turn it into a more complicated tech bag merely to make laptop access easier. A 14-inch laptop is acceptable when I need to carry one; I just would not pretend the experience is effortless.

The perfect partner for the Roller Pro

Where the Weekender really comes into its own for me is alongside the Peak Design Roller Pro Carry-On.

This is where Peak Design’s ecosystem starts to make sense as a system rather than a collection of unrelated bags. The luggage pass-through on the Weekender is excellent. It slides over the Roller Pro handle easily, holds the bag securely & gives me a very neat two-bag cabin setup.

When I travel like this, the Roller carries the expensive camera equipment while the Weekender becomes my clothing & personal-access bag. Passport, wallet, headphones, cables & the things I might want during a flight stay in the Weekender, where so far I have found them easy to access.

With the Weekender sitting on top, the Roller remains secure enough that I can move through an airport far more comfortably than I can when I have a heavily loaded Travel Backpack 45L on my back.

I would not call the Roller-plus-Weekender combination effortless – there is still a lot of camera equipment involved – but it is very good.

The weakness arrives when you encounter stairs. At that point the integrated two-bag system becomes two individual bags again, & I normally remove the Weekender before lifting the Roller. That is more a limitation of rollers generally than of the Weekender itself.

Build quality & weather resistance

The Weekender feels every bit as premium as my other Peak Design luggage. I do not get any sense that the smaller bag has been built down to a price or made from noticeably less substantial materials.

My Peak Design luggage has travelled through rainforest conditions, snow & the dust of Kenyan safaris without giving me concerns about weather protection, zips or materials. My maintenance regime is simple: wipe everything down after a dirty trip & occasionally give the zips a little silicone spray as preventative maintenance.

That silicone is not there because the zips have caused problems. They have not.

The sustainability side of Peak Design also matters to me. It is not enough on its own to make me buy something, & I would not accept a worse product simply because the manufacturer had good environmental credentials, but it is certainly a steering factor when choosing between products that otherwise perform well.

Is the Weekender worth the money?

I think it is. Peak Design products are not inexpensive, but the combination of quality, clever design & good execution is reflected in the pricing. I do not mind paying more when I can see where the money has gone.

The Weekender is probably the Peak Design travel bag with the broadest appeal of the three I own. You do not need to be a photographer to understand it. It is simple, attractive, useful for short trips & easy to integrate with roller luggage.

The person I would steer away from it is someone specifically wanting something very compact. Despite the 25L capacity, this is not a tiny bag, & I would not buy it on the assumption that every airline is going to regard it as an underseat personal item.

Peak Design Travel Weekender 25L verdict

The Weekender does not wow me through clever engineering in quite the same way as the Roller Pro, but I suspect it will become the Peak Design bag I use most.

That is why, if you made me choose just one of the three, this is the one I would keep.

It is simple, handsome, beautifully made, surprisingly capable for three- or four-day packing & superb when paired with the Roller Pro. I would like it to retain its shape a little better when partly empty, but that is currently the only meaningful criticism I can level at it.

Score: 9/10.

See how the Weekender compares to the Roller Pro, the Travel Backpack 45L & the Think Tank Airport Accelerator in our full camera bag & travel luggage comparison.