Why Most Travel Bags Aren't Designed for Women

Tiffany Fowler
2026-04-12T17:01:42+01:00

The travel backpack market hasn't caught up with how women actually pack. PASSIA was designed to change that, starting from function, not aesthetics.

More

The gap in the market

Walk into any travel gear store and the backpack section tells a clear story. Technical fabrics, compression straps, top-loading openings, padded hip belts built for load-bearing on trails. These bags are exceptionally good at what they were designed for. Long-distance hiking, expedition travel, outdoor adventures.

But most women travelling long-term aren't doing any of those things. They're navigating airports, moving between cities, staying in hostels and hotels, working remotely from cafes. The travel is urban, varied, and often extended. The bag category hasn't kept pace with how that kind of travel actually works.

It starts with how women pack

The disconnect isn't just aesthetic. It's functional. The way women pack for long-term travel is genuinely different from the assumptions most backpack designs are built around, and those differences matter when you're living out of a bag for months at a time.

Skincare and beauty products need to be contained, accessible, and wipeable. A single main compartment with no structure means liquids end up wherever gravity puts them, and finding anything requires unpacking half the bag. The result is most women resort to a separate toiletry bag inside a backpack that wasn't designed to accommodate one properly.

Outfits rather than individual items need to stay organised and relatively wrinkle-free. Top-loading designs make this almost impossible. You pack in a specific order or you lose access to everything at the bottom. A suitcase-style opening changes this completely, letting you see and reach everything without disturbing anything else.

Valuables and documents need to be genuinely secure, not just in a pocket at the top of the bag that's accessible to anyone standing behind you. Security needs to be built into the design, not bolted on.

Tech, cables, and accessories need a home that doesn't mean fishing through the main compartment every time. A laptop compartment that opens separately. Internal organisation that keeps small items findable.

What's been missing

The bags that exist for this kind of travel tend to fall into two categories. Hiking packs that are genuinely functional but built around trail use and don't translate well to urban long-term travel. And fashion-forward bags that look good but sacrifice the organisation, structure, and carry comfort that months of travel actually require.

Neither option starts from the same place: what does a woman actually need from a bag she's going to live out of for weeks or months at a time, in cities and on transport and everywhere in between?

See the Design

What PASSIA is built to do

PASSIA started from that question. Not from an existing bag category or a design trend, but from the actual experience of packing for long-term travel as a woman and identifying every point of friction.

The full clamshell opening means the bag lays flat like a suitcase. You can see everything, reach everything, and pack without a system dictated by the bag's structure. The cream wipeable interior makes the contents easy to see and the bag easy to clean after months on the road.

A separate shoe compartment at the base keeps footwear completely isolated from clothes and everything else. A hidden security pocket sits flush to the side for your passport and documents, discreet and genuinely inaccessible from the outside. A micro concealed pocket handles your AirTag and emergency cash. Two stretch bottle pockets keep water and an umbrella within reach without opening anything.

Inside, a two-way adjustable divider creates two packing levels or removes entirely when you need the full space. The rear laptop compartment fits up to 16 inches and opens independently from the main clamshell. Rigid internal panels mean the bag holds its shape and stands upright whether it's full or nearly empty.

The shoulder straps are padded and shaped for a woman's frame, with a chest strap positioned for female proportions. The removable waist belt stores inside the strap panel when you don't need it. The whole strap system tucks away so the bag converts cleanly to luggage mode with a grab handle, which matters more than it sounds when you're navigating a crowded train or a narrow hostel corridor.

Built from the ground up

None of this is a new colourway on an existing hiking pack. PASSIA is being built from a technical specification that started with the features women travelling long-term actually need, and worked backwards to the construction, materials, and dimensions that would make those features work properly.

It's a carry-on travel backpack designed around real packing habits, real routines, and the reality that long-term travel deserves a bag that was actually designed for it.

See the Design Join the Waitlist