Thule Aion 28L, my perfect travel backpack and honest review

Hey Onebag community! I've recently got the Thule Aion 28L and can say it's one of the best backpacks for my personal needs. There isn't too much information about this bag online so I'm happy to share my experiences and thoughts with you in this review. Hope it helps :)

Some background info for reference. I'm someone who likes to travel with camera gear and without too many things. I don't care about much fancy clothing, bring the bare essential toiletries and mostly travel between 4 days and 16 days in warmer climates. So no trips where I'm gone for months or years (money isn't endless unfortunately) and not really going to cold places. This allows me to pack everything including camera gear in 28L or less.

Since I've first started onebag travel around 5 years ago I always wanted a bag that was ''simple'' and would do anything at once. Appearance, materials and features were high on my list. I've used (and still using) my Tropicfeel Hive (26L when expanded) for a while now and it's a good bag. However this came with shortcomings that were annoying and features I've never needed (only realised that later). For instance the water bottle pocket barely fits anything, most expensive add-ons were basically gimmicks and there's not really a quick access pocket.

So after using this for a while the following things have grown to be important for me:

  • A bag with an admin pocket for quick acces to headset, charger or powerbank when on the go in a plane, train or on the airport
  • A good water bottle holder which could fit a thermos flask which is at least 500ML in size
  • A comfortable back panel and straps which don't sweat as much
  • A secret or hidden pocket for my passport and documents
  • An option for the backpack to expand. I normally wouldn't use more room but I like the fact that whenever you want to bring souvenirs or new items, you have a bit more room to play with
  • A place or compartment which is waterproof. I know this one might sound strange but ever since I took my previous bag to Mexico and the towel + swimming pants wouldn't dry and my whole bag became damp I think it's a nice thing to have if possible.
  • A bag which can get big or very small to use as a daypack or use for daily things like gym or work
  • A bag which lasts and where you can rely on

About the Thule Aion 28L

This bag has basically every feature mentioned above and I definitely can't ask for more. It looks good, not too big and not too small, sits comfortably on my back even fully loaded, got some great organisation, fits a thermos bottle and even got a top opening to the main compartment and clamshell opening as well. This main compartment can be divided by the waterproof sleeve. The top acces is also great for quickly accessing my camera. When at a destination and the bag unloaded I'll always take my camera cube with me in the bag. On my previous bag I'd have to always lay the bag flat and fully clamshell open it. With this one I can unzip the YKK zippers at the top and directly acces my camera without exposing anything else. Also when fully packed you can just about store a little bit of extra stuff from the top.

The front compartment and admin panel of this bag are perfect for things I need to reach quickly. All my tech like powerbank, cables, laptop stand and wireless earbuds are in there. On the back panel where the clamshell opening is, I've got my Macbook Air 13'' with it's charger. My Canon EOS R7 sits in it's dedicated camera cube from PGYTech. This is by far the best cube I've used and tested but that's a whole other review :p. When the main compartment is fully loaded it looks like this. All my clothing, toiletries and camera sit inside of there. The bag still looks really clean when zipped up.

Like I mentioned before, the bag can expand from 28L to 32L. With the expansion included the bag looks like this. I personally never need much more space for the trip so I keep it closed, making the bag look like this. Last but not least there's this great hidden pocket for passport or wallet.

The waterproof sleeve is great in my personal opinion. I'm not sure what the general opinion about it is but to me it's great. You can store it in it's pocket if you don't want to use it. But if you do, you can zip it up and it divides the main compartment from the laptop compartment. Then with.a zipper you can store damp, wet or dirty things inside of the pocket without the rest of the backpack and belongings being affected.

My packing list

You can see everything I'm taking in this image. For my upcoming trip I took this with me:

  • Peak design packing cube containing: 3 shorts, 1 swimming pants underwear and 1 sport pants
  • 2x Amazon basics packing cube containing: 6 T-shirts and 1 warmer thin hoodie
  • PGYTech camera cube with my EOS R7, lens caps and shoulder strap. With a lot of room to spare I could also take both camera and my drone but not for this trip
  • Flip flops
  • MacBook Air 13 inch
  • Powerbank 10.000 MaH
  • 3x USB C cables
  • Adapter
  • Mouse for my laptop
  • A laptop stand
  • A small umbrella
  • A small toiletry kit (which isn't in the image, sorry I forgot)
  • A microfiber towel which also sits in my packing cube

If you made it this far I hope my review and opinion was worth reading and I also hope this helps you to get a view of this (type) of bag. Personally like I stated before I think this is my perfect travel backpack and I'll enjoy it years to come. Materials feel rugged, zippers are big fat YKK ones which will last, it's got security, quick acces and aesthetics as well.

If you have any questions about my travel setup or the bag itself, feel free to ask!

TLDR; I explained why this is the perfect travel backpack for my personal needs and included what I packed for my upcoming trip with example images. The Thule Aion is a great, comfortable and sleek looking backpack which expands from 28L to 32L and has some great organisation.