Disclaimer: I was provided 1 free NOMATIC 40L travel bag AFTER having purchased and loved the 2 I purchased myself. All thoughts and opinions expressed herein are my own. Please read our disclosure policy for more information.
As you might know, we are deep into planning our upcoming world tour!
We are planning 15 months of full-time travel with 3 young children (7, 6, and 4)! Leaving our home in Orlando, FL and corporate lives behind, our world trip will start in the Pacific Islands and take us to Oceania, Central Asia, South-East Asia, Europe, Africa, Antarctica, and Latin America.
A grand total of 25 countries are on the itinerary!
While a trip of this magnitude takes months of preparation and lots of creative thinking, there is one thing we have already planned and experimented with – our travel bags!
Now, when you travel with 3 little kids in tow and in small and remote parts of the world, the last thing you want is have to pull a suitcase! And do not count on the kids to help… if anything, they’ll be piling up their own backpacks on you AND ask to be carried 🙂
So… what is the solution? The NOMATIC travel bags!
And boy, do we love them! So so much!!!
If you are already convinced that you want to grab a NOMATIC for yourself… use PROMO CODE FRUGALFORLUX10 for 10% off your entire order!
I just wish every single traveler knew about NOMATIC because once you have tried them, there is no turning back!
They are convenient, practical, and simply genius!
The day that my order was set to be delivered, I must have checked outside the front door 20 times… like a kid on Christmas morning!!
So why do we love our NOMATIC travel bags so much and why in the world would we decide to travel 15 months as a family of 5 with just 3 hand luggages?
1- Practical
We are about to pack our entire lives in a couple of NOMATIC 40L travel bags. I mean our entire lives, all 5 of us, in 3 of those bags!
We took the travel bags for a test trip and recently spent 2 weeks in Hawaii and the Pacific-Northwest with just 2 NOMATIC’s! How awesome is that?! We packed enough to travel from beach to island trekking, snow encounters to cold whale watching cruises, in just 2 NOMATIC 40L travel bags! And that was 2 adults and 3 kids!
So here’s what makes the travel bag so practical:
- Opens wide-open on its whole length (that makes it just as practical as a regular luggage. Nothing settles at the bottom, no need to take everything out to get to the bottom stuff!)
- Internal laptop pocket
- Internal tablet pocket (those 2 pockets make TSA checks soooo easy!)
- Shoe compartment
- RFID security pocket (comes with TSA-approved lock, and keeps your passports and valuables safe when traveling around)
- Roller bag sleeve (if you’re traveling with a checked luggage too, simply slide your NOMATIC onto its handle)
- Laundry bag!!! (one of my favorite features! No more plastic bags or awkward moments not knowing where to put the old shirts. Hang the laundry bag to a door and fill it as you go!)
- Water bottle pocket (lined in waterproof material, just in case)
- Cord management
- …and so many pockets, it’s a little paradise for the organized traveler!
2- Waterproof
This was the first thing I was looking for when picking a long-term travel bag – we’ll be traveling full-time and will be spending a fair amount of travel time in outdoor modes of transportation (think tuk-tuks, scooters, and the such). Our travel bags have to be built with waterproof and durable materials.
3- Carry-On Size
My second requirement was for our travel bags to fit in the overhead compartment.
When you spend lots of time in airplanes, the checked luggage fees add up very quickly. At usually $60 one way, the bags pay for themselves in just over 4 one-way trips, or 2 round trips!
At 21″ x 14″ x 9″, the NOMATIC 40L travel bag is airline-approved as carry-on!
4- Versatile
The 40L travel bag can be carried as a duffel bag by simply buckling the shoulder straps together and carrying by hand.
Our favorite way to travel with the Nomatic is to carry it as a backpack. The shoulder straps are reinforced and very comfortable even when packed heavy! When we carry it on our backs, we simply attach the detachable waist straps, which allows the weight to be nicely spread across our waists!
Bonus point for the family travelers: your hands are free to carry sleepy kids out of airplanes or strollers through cities!
5- Safe
When I first received our NOMATIC travel bags, I was a bit confused as to how to open it! The opening zipper goes against your back – unlike a regular backpack that opens from the outside.
And guess what? I love the concept, it’s genius! To access the inside of your bag, your NOMATIC has to be on the ground and off of your shoulders! Good luck with that, pick-pocketers!!
How To Pack Your NOMATIC travel bag smartly?
Like I said, we have packed all 5 of us in 2 NOMATIC 40L travel bags and found them so convenient that we will be using them as our sole packing solution during our full-time travel.
So here’s what we do:
1- use a different color packing cube for each person
2- pack clothes by themes – warm weather, cold weather, beach vs. trekking gear, etc.
3- put specialty items in separate packing cubes – bathing suits, UV shirts, etc.
4- when traveling with bulky items, get vacuum bags. NOMATIC sells its own, or get some on Amazon that don’t require an actual vacuum (get the roll-up kind)!
Not only will the packing cubes help you stay organized, they will nicely stack up with each other and allow you to efficiently fill every square inch of your NOMATIC travel bag!
So… Convinced Yet?
For being a frugal person, I know the NOMATIC 40L travel bag is not the cheapest bag in the market.
However, for what it is, not only is it cheap, but it is worth every penny and more. The value you will get out of traveling with a NOMATIC travel bag is priceless!
You’ll be saving on the checked bag fees, you will never wait at the baggage claim again, no need to worry about rain and weather, and total practicability!
So whether you’re headed away for the weekend, or plan on traveling long term like we are, the NOMATIC travel bags are your best bet! They are honestly our best travel friends!!
If the 40L is too big for your travel, go down to the 30L travel bag (2 to 4 days), or even just the travel pack (1 to 3 days)!
And don’t forget to use PROMO CODE FRUGALFORLUX10 for 10% off your entire order!
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