Your favorite weekender bag?

[luv2sparkle]

So I just might have picked up a Rhodes bag for my sweetie.

That is a great bag! I have never looked at that one before. I love the extra pocket on the front and the lining.

 

[mochiko42]

Quick update: so I bought 2 new bags!!

I got the Catalina Deluxe Small and then I also got a travel bag from an Italian vendor in Cremona, Italy, who has an Etsy store. The quality of the leather (vegetable tanned full grain Italian leather) and fabric is great. The stitching and finish is pretty good for the price. Overall quality is solid. Also the owners are so nice and responsive!!

This is the bag I got. I loooove the look so much. I'm thinking of ordering a tote bag from them next. Each piece is hand made and you can request custom orders too with more pockets, different measurements, specific fabrics, etc.


https://www.etsy.com/listing/505671405/duffle-bagleather-duffel-bagweekender?ref=shop_home_active_21

 

[VRBeauty]

So... a Catalina Tote, A Catalina Deluxe Large bag, and a Catalina Rhodes went on a 7-week car camping trip in a MINI Cooper Clubman with two adults and a full compliment or camping/cooking gear. The Cubman is a 2009 model - R-55 to those in the know, who will also know that it's much smaller than the more recent iterations. We moved almost every day - staying in 38 different sites in seven weeks - and packing the MINI each day was kind of like playing a game of 3-D Tetris. Once we set up camp the bags were put in the front seats, which sort of served as our wardrobes - LOL!

I liked both of my bags (the Catalina Tote and Deluxe Large Weekender bags). They kept me as organized as I'm going to get. Actually, I'm not a very particularly organized person, and they kept me more organized than usual. Since we were going from the U.S. Southwest and South in August, to the Canadian Rockies in late September, I had to be prepared for a wide variation in temperatures. I used the Tote, the smaller of the bags, for my cold-weather clothes & accessories, and put my hiking boots and socks in the lower compartment. (The size 8 boots just fit in the compartment, without the cushioned liner. A half size larger, and the boots would not have fit.) All other clothes and personal care items , excluding shoes, went into the weekender. The lower compartment of the weekender held my shower stuff, hair dryer, and towel, swim wear, and my small laundry bag and clothes to be cleaned. Within the larger bag, I also used two mesh organization "cubes" that I picked up at Marshall's - one of them held the stuff that went into the tent with me each night. (The cubes came in a pack of three, but I didn't bring the third one since I couldn't think of a good use for it ). I also brought a small day pack that held a book or two and purchases made along the way.

My BF could easily have put all his clothes in his Rhodes bag (it wasn't stuffed nearly as full as mine was ) but he chose to put some cold weather gear in a day pack for easy access while we were on the road.

My overall reaction is that everything worked very well. I like the flexibility offered by the two bags I had. They held everything they needed to hold, and everything was within easy reach. I actually appreciated the fact that there aren't a lot of interior compartments, since the use of those kinds of compartments is rarely intuitive to me and just makes organization more difficult for me. The tote, which is in the light gray color, has some dirt streaks that I haven't tried to remove yet. The large weekender is the purplish-gray "thistle" color. It's a rich, beautiful color to begin with, and it held up to the abuse of seven weeks on the road beautifully. The bag still looks practically like new.

My BF's Rhodes bag, which was made of "600D recycled poly," looks just like new. Honestly, this might be my favorite of the three bags, both in terms of its shape and the type of material used. But it is a bit larger and heavier and not as soft to the touch as the Catalina line, so I'll stick with that line for myself.

So - many thanks to everyone who recommended the Lo and Sons Catalina bags. They were just what I needed for my trip!

 

[whitewave]

I really like my Catalina tote.

 

[Alexiszoe]

Been using the O.G for 5 years now. I fly about once every two months internationally and this bag has held up to a lot of abuse, and it's still going on strong. Plus all the compartments means everything is kept in its place rather than my beloved but disorganized Longchamp tote!