Over the years of traveling, it’s always been a challenge to “travel light” and bring only the most essential items with us. Problem is, we always tend to carry more than what we need, and worse, in separate bags!! And when you’re on the go, that can get quite annoying pretty fast! One bag for our camera and accessories, one bag for the tripod, and recently, one bag for our drone! Well we simply got tired of carrying multiple separate bags especially when we’re on foot exploring a city or even a hike up a forest trail.
The solution?! — enter the Vanguard Veo Discovery 38 Messenger Bag. Sitting at only $69 USD, this bag is simply AMAZING! …at least for what we need it for! If you ask any photographer out there, there really is no such thing as a perfect camera bag. But for us, this one comes pretty darn close!
The biggest challenge when we were shopping for another camera bag was to incorporate that biggest item on our list, our tripod! Considering we were already sporting a small, light Manfrotto BeFree travel tripod, which folds down to just 15.75” inches in height, it was hard to find such bag that can simply allow us to fit the tripod INSIDE the camera bag itself! Most bags we saw had to be strapped and hung outside the bag. Surely nothing wrong with that, but I just felt like it wobbled too much once you started walking. Moreover, it got in the way sometimes when you go venture off in tight spaces like a packed train in New York City and ends up hooking onto other people’s clothing while you’re at it!
What’s so cool and unique about the Vanguard Veo Discovery 38 Messenger bag is that it has its own SEPARATE zippered compartment, specifically just for a tripod!
Moreover, while it allows you to carry the tripod comfortably INSIDE the bag, it also allows you to carry the tripod OUTSIDE of the bag if needed! You get to choose!! Wooo hooo! 🙂
Furthermore, the size of the bag isn’t that big and feels very discreet and less intrusive.
In a word — minimal!
I’ve been becoming more and more of a minimalist these days and truly believe in the “Less is more!” concept….which is why I love this bag even more! Being a smaller bag, especially when compared to a full DSLR backpack, this bag simply allows you to bring JUST ENOUGH gear with you on long or short trips!
Here is a complete list of what we choose to fit inside:
1.) Canon 5D Mark IV DSLR camera
2.) Canon 35mm 1.4L Lens
3.) Canon 85mm 1.8 Lens
4.) Canon 17-40mm 4.0L Lens
5.) Extra Canon battery
6.) Battery charger
7.) Manfrotto BeFree Travel Tripod
8.) Black Rapid camera strap
9.) Hoya 77mm NDX400 9-stop ND filter
10.) B+W 72mm 2-stop ND filter
11.) Lee 4” x 6” 3-stop ND soft grad filter
12.) Passports (probably the most important item in this list! ..although, really not sure why I listed it at #12…the sign of a real gear nut! hahahaha!!) 😛
13.) Sunglasses (for those cool sunny days) 😎
14.) my trusty pen (for signing those immigration papers)
15.) Headphones (of course, gotta watch some movies on board during those long haul flights)
16.) Business cards
17.) Optex Lenspen, lens cleaner
18.) DSLR Rainsleeve (for those unexpected rainfalls)
NOTE: The bag itself does come with a rain hood to cover the entire bag when you get soaked, but we love bringing a separate rain sleeve for our DSLR itself to protect it when you’re actively using it under rainfall! That’s right! — we don’t tuck away the camera just because the rain is falling…if anything, we actually end up using it more! 🙂
And lastly, when needed on the go (…and I really do mean, ONLY when needed!):
19.) DJI Mavic Pro drone
20.) DJI Mavic Pro remote
…and YES, that is right!!…the drone and remote will fit along WITH the tripod!! All these items in just this ONE BAG!!!…how COOL is that?!?!?!!!! (scroll down further and keep reading to find out how!)
USABILITY and COMFORT
We were extremely surprised how comfortable it was lugging around all that stuff listed above! Even with all that weight in one shoulder, we were able to easily walk around town comfortably and have ease of access to all our accessories in the bag.
It comes with a comfortable shoulder pad on the strap that allows breathability when working up a sweat!
The bag is top loading, so you can easily reach every single pocket with one hand when you need to change lenses or grab an accessory.
Moreover, if you need to put your camera down, you can easily tuck it away inside the bag itself, without having to take out anything. It moves freely with lots of space to operate in and out of the bag!
There is also a separate compartment to carry a small 11-inch laptop or a small tablet or iPad.
We don’t have much use for an iPad on the go (since our real mission is to travel as light as possible) so we end up using this extra space to tuck in the camera strap and our passports instead. Besides, our iPhones probably get the most use when we’re on the go! Portability is definitely the name of the game! 🙂
On another note, we really LOVE the fact that this bag can piggy back off your roller bags when you simply just want to roll it!! It has a built in luggage strap that allows you to slip the handle of your roller luggage between it….most definitely another back saver when it’s time to run through those long hallways of all those airports! Thank you Vanguard! 🙂
Now, for the COOLEST part… getting these inside the bag!
Let’s be practical and honest….a drone is almost impossible to use at the heart of a busy city with all the wires and buildings your drone can possibly run into! Not to mention, more and more major cities now a days don’t allow you to fly within a city zone. Having said that, we usually only carry our drone with us when we know we’re headed to a wide open space like a beach or a forest trail! As for the charger for our drone, it stays behind in the hotel, inside our suitcase of clothes! Nonetheless, why carry the extra weight if you don’t need it all the time!! Trust me, your back will thank you! 🙂 But during those situations when we do need it, how do we carry our drone with just this one bag?!? — This bag, as I mentioned, has a separate zippered compartment to house our tripod during regular use. Well we discovered these cool form-fitting hardshell cases available for the DJI Mavic Pro from Amazon, that fits perfectly inside the tripod storage compartment and couldn’t be more perfect for protecting and carrying our drone whenever we need it!
(If you’re interested, you can buy them HERE).
So to carry our drone, we simply tuck the drone and remote in these respective hard shell cases, then we take out the tripod from the zippered compartment of the bag and place these hard shell cases inside the compartment instead!
(As you can see, the length of the tripod is the same length of the two hard cases combined!)
So, first comes the remote…
followed by the drone…
We then mount the tripod on the outside of the messenger bag, using those built-in tripod straps.
Voila!! …all items packed in ONE bag!! Bye bye separate pouches and small bags!! Now that’s super convenient and discreet!! 🙂
A few WISHES, DOWNSIDES and IMPROVEMENTS for next time
Again, there really is no “perfect bag”, but we did wish for a few things after using this bag.
1.) Not a deal breaker but we wished that there were some more extra thin dividers provided. This can certainly be very subjective as each of us do carry different gear when traveling….but luckily, with our camera bag addictions, we ended up stealing a few from our old camera bag. Having these extra thin dividers allowed us to carry and fit more extra accessories inside the bag, such as a battery charger and an extra battery, without having to worry about it scratching or banging against our lenses especially when you are moving fast on the go!
2.) Wished the extra memory card pockets were more usable! While this bag has them built in inside, we can’t help but notice that there were no velcro locks to hold the pockets closed. While you can certainly bring extra memory cards with you, the pockets were too loose inside and the memory cards simply came flying inside the bag onto another compartment only after some walking around town.
3.) Wished there was a separate business card slot beside the memory card pockets. Again, not a deal breaker, but they could have easily fit that right beside the memory card pockets! We just end up throwing our cards in the big pocket below, which could easily be used for something else.
4.) This last one might be “wishful thinking” but thought it might be good to mention. While the color BLACK is a widely universal color that simply and easily marries with anything that you wear….it would be nice to see some variance in color choices or perhaps made in some luxury textures like leather or waxed canvas as an option. Of course, if it did sport those type of materials, weight and price would definitely be more at that point….but hey, we like looking sexy!! 😛
But all in all, for us, this bag currently stands alone and on top of our favorite camera bag list! And sitting at a super affordable price tag at just $69 USD, you really can’t go wrong! It’s light, comfortable and packs just enough for you ‘light travelers’ out there! If you are interested in purchasing this bag, you can check it out HERE.
Safe and happy travels everyone! ~Keith