I never understood comments adults made like ‘act your age not your shoe size’. I always found such advice really irritating, probably because, in that specific example, I’ve always had big feet. However, I recently discovered an aspect of adulting that is actually quite good.
Wheeled carry-on luggage.
I’ve always felt there’s something more youthful about going through an airport with a backpack. A little like baggy pants for snowboarding, versus shiny black Italian salopettes – you can choose your travel and holiday attire carefully to suit the particular character you most want to channel.
When it comes to carry-on luggage, I’ve avoided the wheeled carry-on bag like the plague, convinced that it would add at least 20 years to my age and mark me out as a German management consultant, not a wannabe pro mountain biker. So I’ve persevered with a scruffy backpack, albeit the excellent and loyal Restrap Duffle I’ve had for about 13 years now.
The surprise is just how much it’s changed my life since that moment. No one would argue with the practicality of a backpack, but a wheeled carry-on now absolutely wins it for me in middle age. And while trying to look younger is certainly a fool’s errand for me these days, I think it doesn’t do me any harm in the kudos stakes either. I wouldn’t say I get admiring looks, but it’s so much easier to grab a laptop, reach for my camera, and do all the things I need to while at an airport – and frankly, I am never going back.
The Thule Chasm is made of some extremely good materials too. The bag’s fabric is tough, looks brilliant and is virtually unmarked after at least eight return flights through European airports this year, along with countless weekends somewhere in the car. The wheels, clips, zips, and the all-important telescopic handle are all solid, dependable, and exactly as you’d hope they’d be.
There are also some game-changing compression sacks that squish everything down to save space, giving you more room than even my fairly cavernous duffle. It’s all neatly organised and almost like a little travel library compared to the chaos of duffle-life, with endless handy pouches and zipped sections. The compression bags also serve as dirty laundry bags, so you can just grab them when you get home and delay the real unpacking until after your dinner.
The main issue is the price. As a journalist, I probably couldn’t justify purchasing one of these if I had to buy it. It’s a big ticket premium item. But I was given this bag essentially for free. And while that doesn’t influence my impression of the product – just as with anything else lent to me for review without payment – if it’s rubbish, I’ll say so, regardless.
It does, however, highlight how expensive good luggage can be. I wouldn’t and couldn’t afford to buy this Thule Chasm at full price. However, if you can and you’re in the market for a really excellent, perhaps even outstanding, piece of wheeled carry-on, you won’t want to miss the current deal.
The item usually costs £369.95, for what must be Sweden’s finest carry-on export. But today, you can get one for just £275, bringing it into the range of some much poorer, way less cool and capable gear – making it a bit of an unbeatable Cyber Monday bargain.
I can’t say it’s the best case ever, as I have literally never tested another piece of carry-on, but I can say it’s really very well made and works brilliantly. If you’re going to upgrade your travel kit to something a little more refined, like I did through privilege, Thule has the kind of brand cachet that means you won’t look like a miserable old sod heading to a conference when you’re rolling through airport security with it.
And it does make things way easier than travelling with a backpack and I suspect it’s going to last just as long if not way longer than my trusty duffle has.
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