I'm a Travel Writer and My Favorite Travel Backpack Just Dropped Below $30 for Prime Day
As a full-time food and travel writer, I'm constantly flying to different places all over the world -- in fact, I take at least 50 flights a year. Wherever I go, my highest priority is that I have a spacious carry-on bag that I can easily hoist into the overhead compartment -- something that's also versatile enough to accommodate all my travel essentials.
It doesn't take a professional traveler to know that having just the right luggage is essential. However, because I fly so often, I've tried out just about every type of carry-on bag you can find. And I say this with complete sincerity: This Dinictis backpack is the single best carry-on bag I've ever owned.
I'll admit that other carry-on bags might look more stylish and come in a wider array of colors. But I have yet to find one that meets my needs for durability, efficiency and affordability better than this well-designed travel bag that's just $40 at full retail price and which often goes on sale for less. If you have travel plans coming up this summer, this is the carry-on you want to bring along, full stop. And don't worry about misplacing your backpack. Simply throw in an AirTag, especially when you can get a pack of them for a super low price, too.
Read more: Traveling Soon? 5 Unique AirTag Locations for Peace of Mind
When only a backpack will do
It's available in four colors: gray, dark gray, blue and black.
Pamela Vachon/CNET
To be clear, my backpacking days were over before they started. Without the means for serious travel before age 25, my life as a traveler didn't kick off in earnest until I was equipped solely with roller-bag sensibilities. As an [age redacted]-year-old, when I scheduled myself for a bus trip along the coast of Peru, with overnight stays in modest accommodations, suddenly a roller bag felt kind of … well, prissy. Roller bags are decidedly inconvenient on unpaved or nontiled surfaces; plus, it's just not a good look when the vibe is more low-brow than luxury. This wasn't a backpacking trip by any means but a backpack was definitely called for. One that could accommodate a week's worth of clothing, amenities and a laptop but still potentially fit in a locker.
The Dinictis 40L Travel Backpack came into my life for this particular trip, exceeding my expectations. Since that Peruvian adventure, this bag has come with me on every single trip, no matter the occasion.
A backpack that works like a suitcase
It's a backpack that packs like a suitcase.
Dinictis
Many travel backpacks are spacious and compartmentalized but the Dinictis 40L Travel Backpack operates like a suitcase. It opens along three sides so you can flip it open like a suitcase and pack accordingly, with straps for holding your clothing in place. This makes finding what you need much easier than shoving your belongings from the top down like a typical backpack. A side handle even allows you to carry it like a suitcase.
When full, it can easily hold up to 10 kg, or 22 pounds, the weight restriction for carry-on baggage for many of the discount airlines. Because it's a backpack, nobody has ever asked to weigh it for compliance. It will always look lighter than it is.
Store your laptop with confidence
As a writer, I always travel with a laptop so I'm concerned with its portability as well as safety. That said, I hate having it pressed right up against my back, which can be stiff and, depending on where you're going, sweaty. The laptop sleeve on this model is ideally situated near the (sweat-free) front of the pack but isn't the most outward-facing compartment. Honestly, protected by a foam divider, the laptop feels hidden, even when packed to the gills.
Outside pockets are a must
A side handle is key for navigating public transportation.
Dinictis
I am team-soft-body, even in roller-bags, for two reasons. First, it's much easier to shove last-minute items into an already zipped suitcase without the clamshell action of a hard case, and second: outside pockets. Who can travel without these? (No, I really want to know…) This backpack has two outer pocket compartments for miscellany, arguably three when considering the extra space in front of the laptop sleeve -- and four if you include the handy water bottle holder. There are even compartments within the compartments. These are the sorts of details that separate the high-functioning from the holding-up-the-line travelers, in my opinion.
Read more: Essential Items to Pack and Avoid in a Carry-On Bag to Breeze Through TSA Lines
A personal item that can masquerade as checked luggage
Safe laptop storage is crucial for a travel writer and this bag has a dedicated sleeve.
Vaultz
Many travel backpacks have an infrastructure that keeps them in a certain shape, even when empty. The Dinictis model has enough structure to keep its sides afloat while you pack it, but its essence is still as a lightweight, fabric backpack. If you've ever been asked to prove that your carry-on actually qualifies as carry-on, you will understand that "smushability" is an important factor. I have packed this backpack for a weekend away and brought it on board as a personal item. (I will fly Spirit Airlines but I will only do it while giving them as little of my money as possible.) It can totally fit under the seat in front of you when necessary.
The beauty of this travel backpack is that it is also suitable as checked baggage, with heavy-duty fabric that can withstand the journey. The straps can be unclipped and tucked away and the body cinched by additional clips, for a tidy package that doesn't make you feel panicky when you watch it being whisked away on the baggage conveyor.
I've had many trips where it leaves with me as carry-on and returns as checked luggage. Even in the lighter gray color, its durable material doesn't reveal that it has ever seen the tread of a baggage carousel. It was the function I didn't even know I needed but now I never travel without it for this purpose.
Read more: Best Laptop Backpack for 2025
Dinictis Travel Backpack specs
Exterior dimensions: 9.8 x 13.8 x 19.6 inches
Storage capacity: 40 liters
Weight: 2.49 pounds
Pockets: 1 exterior water bottle pocket, 2 exterior front pockets, 1 padded interior laptop pocket
Carrying handles: 1 top, 1 side
Material: Polyester and nylon
4.7 average rating on Amazon
You don't even need to take it from me. The 40L Travel Backpack has thousands of five-star ratings on Amazon. As someone who reviews various products for a living, I know just how rare this kind of rating is. And now that it's still selling for only $29, this bag is a pretty safe bet.
When will this deal expire?
We don't know how long this deal will last, but we do know Amazon Prime Day ends on July 11. We often see at least one color of this backpack on sale on Amazon. Still, we always recommend placing your order sooner rather than later if you want to ensure you get this price and your color of choice.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNET
18 hours ago
- CNET
Don't Overpay for Summer Flights. Try These 5 Proven Tricks to Save on Airfare
From flying midweek to choosing a budget airline, there are a variety of ways to save on airfare when traveling. mihailomilovanovic/Getty Images Summer is well underway, making it the perfect time to plan your next vacation. Last year US travelers saw airfare prices plummet, making it more affordable to vacation away from home. While travel to the US has dropped in 2025, Americans are still vacationing as much as ever. That doesn't mean that traveling during peak times or in the height of summer is cheap, though. Inflation has raised the prices of everyday necessities, making it more important than ever to save money where you can. Knowing when you should book your flights and how you can find the best deals help ensure you stretch every dollar. I've already written about key travel trends but now I've compiled more tips on how to save money on airfare. Here's what you need to know about getting plane tickets for less than the sticker price. From the cheapest day to fly to our picks for the best travel credit cards, we'll give you the tips you need to score affordable flights. Read more: Optimize Your Travels by Never Forgetting to Pack These 12 Essentials 1. Aim to fly midweek CNET Booking flights to take off and land on the weekend is costing you. Per Google Flights data, the most cost-effective flights are available on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with Tuesday emerging as the most economical day based on past flight records. Choosing to fly during the early to middle part of the week can result in savings of 13% to 20% on ticket prices compared to flights on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, with Sunday standing out as the priciest day for flying. Google Flights data show there isn't a specific "best" day to book flights, but the actual day you travel does affect cost. Avoid flying on a weekend day for the best rates. 2. Consider a budget airline If cost is more of a priority when flying, consider booking through a budget airline. Budget airlines are often smaller, less luxurious and have fewer flight options, but they can also save you hundreds of dollars over larger airlines, such as American, Delta and United. Here's a list of budget airlines in the US: Budget airlines often require you to give up some convenience for cheaper fares. For instance, you'll likely have to pay additional fees for carry-on bags and other amenities that are generally free through nonbudget airlines. You'll also have to pay to select your seat on the plane or be assigned randomly. It's best to add up these fees to make sure you're actually saving money in the long run. Skipping on the amenities of bigger airlines could save you hundreds of dollars on your trip. Short-haul flights and casual weekend getaways are especially suited to budget airlines. 3. Take advantage of one-way flights and layovers Booking one-way flights may not be as convenient as round-trip tickets but it gives you more options to choose from price-wise: You can book through different airlines for the best fares on the days you plan on flying. For example, Delta might get you to your destination for less money but American Airlines may be cheaper for the flights home. For more savings, and especially if your schedule is flexible, consider booking a flight with one or more layovers. It's no surprise that flights with layovers are cheaper than nonstop flights, but you may not realize just how significant the savings can be. Travelers can save 25% by booking a flight with a layover instead of a nonstop flight, according to Google Flight data. 4. Use a travel credit card You can use frequent flyer miles and rewards points from travel credit cards to save even more money. Travel credit cards work by rewarding you with points or miles for travel-related and everyday expenses. Upon collecting a sufficient amount of points or miles, you can exchange them for perks such as airline tickets and hotel stays. A travel credit card may even give you extra points or miles when you use the card for travel purchases, but rates vary. Some Airlines, like Delta and United, have their own credit cards that pay in miles, which can be redeemed for "free" flights or upgrades, and may offer perks like priority boarding and a free checked bag. Using a travel credit card for purchases can get you rewards like discounted flights, upgrades, priority boarding and a free checked bag. Zooey Liao/CNET 5. Try travel apps and features for finding flight deals Apps and automated features can make finding cheap flights easier. Travelers can use apps such as Going (formerly Scott's Cheap Flights) to discover flight deals. Going uses software and flight experts to amalgamate deals and mistake fares (when an airline or travel agency lists an incorrect price for a plane ticket that is much less than it's worth) up to 90% off, and then emails those discounted flights to members. Apps like Going use software to discover the cheapest domestic and international flights available. Macy Meyer/CNET Google Flights also unveiled a new "Cheapest" tab on its platform in October 2024 to help travelers save money and find ultra-cheap flights with ease. To get started, you'll just need to enter your trip details and tap the "Cheapest" tab to browse the lowest options available. For more travel tips, learn whether travel insurance is worth the cost and expert tips for picking and packing carry-on luggage.
Vox
2 days ago
- Vox
Personalized prices sure sound like a bad idea
is a senior technology correspondent at Vox and author of the User Friendly newsletter. He's spent 15 years covering the intersection of technology, culture, and politics at places like The Atlantic, Gizmodo, and Vice. If you do find yourself shopping for a flight, a pair of underwear, or even a concert ticket, and you want to be treated like a stranger, make yourself a stranger online. Getty Images During Amazon's semi-annual Prime Day bonanza, the underwear I usually buy were on deep discount at a price so low I assumed it was just for me, the frequent shopper. I got three packs and felt good about it. But a few days ago, when I saw the news that Delta was using AI to personalize its flight prices, I got mad. I started to suspect that something sinister was behind my great deal on drawers at Amazon. Was that sale just for me? Where else have I been paying personalized prices? Delta CEO Glen Hauenstein actually announced last year that the airline was using AI to do 'a full reengineering of how we price and how we will be pricing in the future' at its annual Investor Day event. He promised, somewhat ominously, that airfares would be determined 'on that flight, on that time, to you, the individual.' Last week, Hauenstein ignited a furor telling investors that Delta was currently using the technology on 3 percent of flight prices and planned to boost that to 20 percent by the end of this year. User Friendly A weekly dispatch to make sure tech is working for you, instead of overwhelming you. From senior technology correspondent Adam Clark Estes. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Welcome to the era of hyper-personalized pricing. Companies are increasingly deploying AI-powered technology that is capable of identifying thousands of different real-time signals — everything from your location and loyalty status to your device and search history — to sell the same product to two different people for two different prices. This represents an advanced form of dynamic pricing, the age-old practice of adjusting prices based on market conditions. With the help of algorithms and reams of data, some businesses are taking a new, personalized approach: surveillance pricing. Dynamic pricing is perfectly legal, but surveillance pricing and the accompanying privacy concerns are new. Suffice to say, consumers don't like the idea of companies using AI to set prices. On Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Greg Casar announced plans to introduce a bill that would ban surveillance pricing at a federal level. Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego accused Delta of 'using AI to find your pain point — meaning they'll squeeze you for every penny' and sent the company an angry letter, which was cosigned by Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. And earlier this month, New York enacted a law that requires sellers to disclose when personalized algorithmic pricing is in effect, with similar legislation under consideration in other states. Consumers don't like the idea of companies using AI to set prices. When I asked George Slover, general counsel of the Center for Democracy and Technology, about pricing models like this, he said, 'This is a different animal than what the airlines have been doing in the past, and it is more personalized and more intrusive.' Delta denies anything untoward is happening here. The company said in a statement, 'There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing, or plans to use that targets customers with individualized offers based on personal information' and that fares are 'based solely on trip-related factors like advance purchase and cabin class.' In other words, according to the company, AI helps Delta set prices using metrics the airline already uses to determine airfares. Amazon, too, says it doesn't use surveillance pricing after a botched experiment 25 years ago. Still, surveillance pricing is already a documented phenomenon. Kroger offers different discounts to different customers based on personal data, according to a Consumer Reports investigation published in May. Target settled a lawsuit and paid $5 million in fines after a local KARE 11 news investigation in Minneapolis found that prices in the Target app changed when customers entered the perimeter of a store. And a ProPublica investigation revealed that the Princeton Review charged Asian families higher prices for college prep services. 'It is a more sophisticated and algorithmically driven and selective price gouging,' Slover said of surveillance pricing, which he calls bespoke pricing. 'You are focusing on one particular individual based on their vulnerability and susceptibility. If you're wondering who to blame for this trend for this era of computer-optimized price schemes, the answer is surprisingly obvious: It's airlines. Well, and Jimmy Carter. Airline prices have always been a black box The era of dynamic pricing as we know it started in 1966, when American Airlines launched its Semi-Automated Business Research Environment, or SABRE. This computerized reservations system became the company's nerve center, where data about every reservation and cancellation was kept. After President Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act into law in 1978, which allowed airlines to set their own prices, American Airlines leveraged the data they collected through SABRE to maximize profits. The company even created a new system called DINAMO to do so, and within a few years, dynamic pricing became industry standard. American Airlines led the way, launching its Super Saver fares and helping drive down the price of flights for leisure travelers while business travelers footed the bill for the discounts. However, it wasn't always clear why some seats were cheaper than others. This is still the black box approach to airfare pricing we're living with today. Related How airlines squeeze you for every penny Airfares can vary widely based on a number of factors, from the number of discounts the airline releases to when the passenger books the flight. The person you're sitting next to on any given flight could have paid twice as much as you — or half as much. It's getting harder to figure out how to game the system, too, as computers have improved and algorithms have gotten more sophisticated. And now there's AI. Does this mean Delta will know when you're flying to a funeral on short notice and charge you full fare, because it knows you'll pay it? Probably not, according to Laurie Garrow, a professor of aviation at George Tech. 'The characteristics that they're looking at to do this discounting are characteristics about your trip — how far I'm booking in advance, what market, how many people are traveling together, historic purchase patterns in the aggregate — that's what's being fed to the AI,' Garrow said. 'It's not things that are being hypothesized, like, 'Am I going to a funeral?'' In other words, what Delta knows about is based on the data you've given it, especially when shopping for flights. It turns out that what's happening with Amazon prices is a little less nefarious. The company uses dynamic pricing with the help of algorithms — it constantly changes prices based on supply and demand — but Amazon says it doesn't do personalized or surveillance pricing. So that super low price on boxer briefs wasn't just for me. Amazon reportedly changes its prices up to 2.5 million times a day, or about once every 10 minutes, but those fluctuations show up for all customers. 'Algorithmic pricing exploits a vast asymmetry of information,' said Elise Phillips, policy counsel at Public Knowledge. 'Given that there is often little transparency in how these algorithms function, it's fundamentally unfair to consumers.' What you can do to avoid the algorithm's gaze It may feel impossible to escape the reach of dynamic pricing both online and off. Again, it's not just airlines and Amazon doing it. Ticketmaster, which is infamous for dynamic pricing, and its parent company Live Nation are being sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for illegally operating a monopoly. (So is Amazon.) Kroger is being scrutinized not only for its personalized discounts but also its new electronic shelf labels, which change the prices of groceries for arbitrary reasons. Uber has normalized surge pricing, and is now finding new ways to overcharge customers. If you do find yourself shopping for a flight, a pair of underwear, or even a concert ticket, and you want to be treated like a stranger, make yourself a stranger online. You can avoid spending money with companies who use dynamic prices, if there's a good alternative. (For air travel, unfortunately, that's nearly impossible because most airlines use a form of dynamic pricing.) Nevertheless, if you do find yourself shopping for a flight, a pair of underwear, or even a concert ticket, and you want to be treated like a stranger, make yourself a stranger online. You can do this several different ways. Use a VPN when you shop online. And then try it using incognito mode in Chrome or a private browser window in Safari to keep data out of the algorithms' hands. You could even use a privacy-focused browser, like Duck Duck Go, to avoid even more trackers. Heck, try all three approaches and see if the prices change. It is theoretically possible that surrendering your personal data could lead to lower prices. That doesn't make it right, though. 'Just because the technology exists, we don't just have to let companies do what's most profitable for them,' Brian Callaci, chief economist at the Open Markets Institute, told me. 'You know, the whole point of capitalism should be working for us and not the other way around.' A version of this story was also published in the User Friendly newsletter. Sign up here so you don't miss the next one!
CNET
3 days ago
- CNET
Save on Summer Travel With a $10 Dollar Flight Club Premium Plan While You Still Can
With the summer now very much here, it's time to think about your travel plans. Summer vacations are always something to look forward to, but paying for them? Not so much, especially if you're planning international travel, so being able to save money is a must. One of the best ways to do that is to grab a Dollar Flight Club subscription, which can save you a small fortune on flights and more. And thanks to an incredible StackSocial deal, you can get one for just $10 right now. The Dollar Flight Club Premium plan locates discounts on international and domestic economy flights, sending the deals right to your phone. Up to four departing airports can be added to your account, providing a wider range of potential departures for the best deals. You can save up to $2,000 per trip using the service. A subscription normally costs $69 a year, but now you can get one for a whopping 85% off, reducing the price to something much more palatable. Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money. The Premium Plus plan includes the same benefits as the Premium plan, but discounts on business class and premium economy flights are included. Exclusive discounts on TSA PreCheck, Priority Pass and more are also available. This option normally costs $99 a year, but it's only $30 with this deal. For more travel prep, check out some of the best travel essentials you should remember to pack wherever you roam. Why this deal matters Travel can be costly, so any savings are welcome. A Dollar Flight Club subscription can help you save thousands on domestic and international flights. Subscriptions are up to an impressive 85% off right now. Grab yours before the deal expires, which could be at any time. Keep in mind that this deal is only for new members.
