Nomadic Research TTL Travel Bag 38L Review

Max Legal Carry On – For anyone who has been in the Everyday Carry game for a while this category of travel bags needs no introduction. For the uninitiated, these are bags that typically land in the 35-45L range and are classified as being the maximum dimensions allowed by most airlines. Many times these bags are also designed around multiple methods of carry: Hand, Shoulder, and Back. 

Every brand under the sun makes something in this category, ranging from simple classics like Patagonia’s Black Hole or The North Face’s Base Camp to maximalist feature-rich offerings from Peak Design, Matador, and countless other carry brands all around the globe. What if your needs land somewhere in between? You want simple ease of use but also a more technical aesthetic without getting bogged down with complex features. 

Enter Nomadic Research – A veteran-owned brand who have made a name for themselves in the covert tactical and MIL/LE realms. Founded in 2017, they have created a refined and thoughtful collection of products that reflect their vast experience in the field. There’s always been a strong crossover between the practical needs of the tactical and Everyday Carry worlds. Both demand the best materials and construction, comfort in use, and features that remain easy to use while in action. The Nomadic Research TTL Travel Bag 38L is a prime example of a max airline legal bag born out of the needs of international air travel and the unique demands that are often placed on such pieces of kit. 

Features

The TTL is an unassuming bag on the surface. It blends in with any other black travel bag while you’re in transit. It offers three different methods of carry: Folded seatbelt grab handles on the top and sides of the bag, an included detachable shoulder strap, and backpack straps that tuck away completely in a dedicated zippered pocket when not in use.

The bag features a 38L clamshell design with a dedicated padded laptop sleeve, and two front accessory compartments. Each half of the clamshell features a U-shaped zippered compartment each with two flat mesh pockets on the front to keep your contents well contained during travel.

The clamshell side closest to the back panel has 4″ of depth (measured from the seam to the top of the center of the zipper) and features collapsible dividers to help keep contents organized. These dividers are Velcroed in place and lay flat when not in use. The clamshell side on the front of the bag has 3″ of depth and is a wide open space.  

The forward compartment is a half zip opening and has 2″ of shared depth with three large zippered mesh pockets inside. The zippered pocket on the very front of the TTL has shared depth with the larger compartment behind it. There is a large loop field and another smaller zippered mesh pocket.

The loop field is sized to perfectly fit the optional Admin Organizer from Nomadic Research. Other flat hook-backed accessories will also fit. It’s pictured here with a hook-backed MOD from The Brown Buffalo. This front pocket shares its volume with the half zip compartment and the front half of the clamshell. It’s best reserved for smaller flat items when you’ve got a fully packed bag.

The padded laptop compartment on the rear of the TTL is sized to fit up to a 16″ laptop and is a floating sleeve design so there’s no chance of your laptop coming in contact with a hard surface when setting the bag down. There is also room for documents or other flat items in this compartment.

A luggage handle passthrough on the back features a zippered closure on the bottom, allowing it to be used as a simple slip pocket for when the bag is being used as hand luggage or a shoulder bag.

The backpack straps hide away completely and cleanly into a zippered compartment on the back panel (separated and padded from the laptop compartment).

Most importantly – It easily passes for an overhead carry-on bag for even the most strict airlines in the US. Anecdotally, if you’re willing to give up all your legroom in Economy it does manage to fit under the seat, but it does not fit in the “Personal Item” baggage sizer when fully packed out. Passenger beware.

Carry-On – Yes 100%.

Personal Item – YMMV.

Materials & Construction

The shell of the TTL is made from Dimension Polyant’s VX21RS X-Pac which features a 210d ripstop nylon face fabric with DWR coating laminated to polyester X-Plys, and a 50d taffeta backing. The “S” moniker in VX21RS stands for “soft” and this has a notably softer and quieter hand feel compared to the more common VX21. This is achieved by omitting the PET film that is used in VX21. Even without the film, the lamination process allows VX21RS to retain the same level of weather resistance as VX21. 

The interior is fully lined with a gray dobby weave nylon which provides a good level of brightness to help find items that may have fallen into a corner. Under the side and top handles are a small accent piece of reversed X50 Multicam Black X-Pac. An unusual choice but a nod to Nomadic Research’s Raid backpack which came in an X50 Multicam Black X-Pac option. The carry handles on the side and top are a simple dual-layer folded nylon seatbelt construction. Don’t let the simplicity fool you – these are comfortable to grab and all webbing throughout the bag is bartacked for additional strength. The zippers used throughout the TTL are YKK 10RC and 8RC reverse coil in a matte black finish with silent heat shrink tubing zipper pulls.

The shoulder strap consists of a padded dual-layer seatbelt webbing and will support the heaviest of loadouts that you can pack into this bag. It connects corner-to-corner to provide a more balanced carry.

The stowable backpack straps are lined with a 4-way stretch fabric on the side that sits against your body and are padded with a very dense comfortable foam. These are some of the nicest stowable straps we’ve come across. Easily on par with backpack straps from the best of the best out there – stowable or not.  There are ample amounts of smooth seatbelt webbing to adjust the straps to fit any body type.

The backpack straps and removable shoulder strap are anchored to metal D-rings with non-rotating metal snap hardware similar to what you’d find on a rifle sling.

In Use

Over the past few months, we’ve taken the TTL on numerous car trips as well as a few cross-country flights on several different types of aircraft. Some folks will always prefer hard-sided roller luggage over the soft squishy type. But if you’re often finding yourself on small tight regional jets and would rather not gate-check your bag, soft-sided luggage is The Way.

Packing the TTL is about as easy as it gets. The very nature of soft-sided luggage means that the stated dimensions have room to flex. Splitting your packing into two large compartments makes it harder to overpack. As long as each side closes easily, you’ll know that the clamshell will close and the bag will be good to go.

Through most of our travels we kept the TTL in backpack mode. It was love at first sight once we felt how good the straps feel on-body. Carrying it for hours through airports and convention centers was a breeze whether it was fully packed out or used as a daily driver once we had unpacked at our destination. If you’re going to utilize the forward half zip compartment and front zippered pocket, we found it best to pack out any bulkier items you may want quick access to before packing that side of the clamshell. 

Due to the nature of soft-sided bags, there is always some degree of volume sharing between compartments. A fully packed clamshell half will start to eat up space in those two front compartments. This is not a unique problem and is something you’ll come across in all forms of soft-sided bags. Tom Bihn’s Aeronaut line of bags uses this volume sharing as a feature between the three compartments.

In the forward half zip compartment we packed the Arc’teryx Heliad 6 with an iPad Mini, portable charging bank, cables, travel documents, and snacks. It was easily retrieved after passing through security and worn on-body while the TTL went in backpack mode.

This brings up a broader topic of travel bag packing theory and with the TTL specifically. We preferred to travel with the TTL fully packed with clothes and travel essentials that won’t be accessed until the final destination is reached. Alternatively, if you’re not packing the TTL quite as full, the half zip compartment and front zippered pocket become much more usable in transit – especially if used as a shoulder bag or hand luggage. These two pockets are less accessible when in backpack mode.

A bonus feature of a travel bag of this size – if you’d rather deploy a smaller pack for everyday use once you arrive at your destination, most 20L or smaller bags fit quite nicely in the deeper side of the clamshell. 

We threw a Mission Workshop Sanction AP in there for a trip to San Francisco. Especially if you fill the smaller bag up efficiently, you don’t lose much space at all doing this.

When you find yourself needing to slim down the bag to be as sleek and low profile as possible, the backpack and shoulder straps all stow away completely – leaving only the carry handles exposed and no loose webbing to get caught when you need to move through tight spaces or gate-check the bag.

The Good

TL;DR – The TTL is good. Very, VERY good. In the best way possible the TTL feels like the spiritual successor to the out-of-production Triple Aught Design Meridian 40L bag. From the covert aesthetic, VX21RS exterior, similar capacities, and 3-way carry – the TTL takes those cues and applies Nomadic Research’s take on what a travel bag should be. And they have executed that with thoughtful precision. It’s not flashy or particularly exciting even. It does what it needs to do and gets out of your way in a simple, comfortable, and good-looking package.

Soft-sided luggage – love it or hate it – has its place in the world of Carry. The TTL is well-made, easy to use, and feature-rich without feeling overbearing.

The Not So Good

There is always some amount of trade-offs made when considering soft-sided luggage and the TTL is not without fault. This only applies to using the TTL as a backpack – because the lower strap anchors are low profile and sit inward from the edges of the bag, depending on how you have the TTL packed out, the back panel can bulge out around the lumbar area. Whether you notice this will vary from person to person. A small frame sheet or repositioning of strap anchors would be ideal.

One more grab handle on the bottom, please! Every time we put the bag in the overhead compartment or under a seat on a plane it felt most natural to put it topside-first. Unfortunately, the handles are only on the top and the side, which leaves no handle to grab on the bottom when you go to extract the bag again.

A minor quibble but even a very small flat piece of webbing would go far in making this a near-perfect maximum carry-on sized bag.

The shoulder strap is quite stiff and can be slippery in use unless you sling it cross-body. The use of seatbelt webbing can be a double-edged sword here. We would’ve liked to see something with a bit more grip for one-sided shoulder carry. On the plus side, the D-ring anchors allow you to swap out for any other straps you’d like to use.

Verdict

Nomadic Research may be flying under the radar for some but it’s clear these guys have some excellent design chops. The TTL Travel Bag 38L is a remarkably easy-to-use travel bag that will feel right at home in any modern bag collection.