If you plan to travel on a plane with carry-on only, which we highly recommend, you will be allowed to bring two bags onto the plane with you. One bag will be your suitcase or travel backpack. It’s the bag you’ll be packing your clothes in. For your second bag, you are allowed what airports term: a small personal item. This item is what most people use as their travel day bag, which is the bag or purse you plan to use to carry all of your essentials throughout tours and various adventures.

Picking the perfect travel day bag requires choosing something versatile. It must be big enough to hold all of your basics, like a wallet and phone as well as those specific travel necessities like sunscreen or water during a hike. Despite being spacious enough, the bag should also be light enough to carry throughout the day. It has to work for multiple destinations - from carrying it onto a plane or train, or walking through the streets of Paris or the thoroughfare at an amusement park. 

The Travelon Anti-Theft Heritage Tour Bag checks all these boxes and more.

If sturdiness and diversity of use is your number one priority than this Tour Bag certainly takes the cake. I have taken this bag on a hike, to a theme park, to museums, and to the beach - where no sand got in it! The bag has been bumped and justled but it has yet to tear, scratch, or even look all that rough around the edges. 

The Heritage Tour Bag is not particularly wide but it is tall. The dimensions are 9 inches wide by 11 ½ inches tall with a 3 inch depth. The strap is adjustable from 14 inches to 25 inches in length. 

This all means that the Tour Bag is surprisingly spacious with room enough to fit almost anything you could think to carry with you. It also has tons of organization in the form of pockets and compartments to help you find whatever you need while on the go.

On the sides of the bag are pockets for an umbrella or water. Those pockets have a zipper to make the bag’s design slimmer when empty but expand when you need to use them with an elastic band. Bottles that are 16.9 fl. oz. fit easily, but you could stretch the elastic to fit something a little larger. Considering its sleek and narrow shape, even when adding in the width of filling up those side pockets, the bag still doesn’t end up too wide. Plus the convenient access is great when you think it might rain at a moment’s notice or you’re exhausted and dehydrated while waiting in the line for the Jurassic Park ride.

The front compartment has a slot for a pen and a pocket big enough to fit a travel size pack of tissues along with whatever other odds and ends you might want. The front compartment also held my phone in its case without any trouble.

The front upper zippered section is only a few inches deep but like all the zippered pockets it has the benefit of a security latch to keep thieves away from your valuables. However, I should note that the latches appear too small to fit even a small lock onto them. It seems like overkill to me to need a lock in addition to the latches but it may be more of a concern for you if you are going to more dangerous locations.

The latches aren’t the only safety feature, though. The material is slash resistant – meaning it’s embedded with a metal cross-mesh to prevent anyone cutting open your bag. Don’t worry; you can’t tell from the feel of the fabric, which is a rugged cotton canvas that gives durability while moving Travelon away from the synthetic texture of most of their nylon bags.

The final notable safety feature is the RFID zippered pocket inside the main compartment. It is plenty deep enough to fit a passport and wallet.

Opposite the RFID zippered pocket is an open face padded pocket for your Kindle Fire (as shown in the photos) or a larger tablet like an iPad. The bag is too small for a laptop if you couldn’t tell, but the size of bag needed for that would probably get quite heavy for taking on tours. That said, this bag might also risk getting heavy if you overload it but it does have the benefit of a wide strap, which helps to more evenly distribute the weight of the bag.

One of my favorite things to slip into the main compartment is my travel pharmacy and first aid kit. If you don’t know what a travel pharmacy and first aid kit is, then check out our post here with a full list of what you need to take on your next vacation. 

My kit is kept in a Narwey makeup bag that I bought from Amazon and it fits perfectly right at the bottom of the main compartment. And it leaves plenty of room for more essentials.

If all of those other pockets and compartments weren’t enough for your needs, however, the Heritage Tour Bag has one more pocket in the back that runs as deep as the bag.

So, let’s recap: this bag is spacious, has tons of organization and all of the latest security features a traveler could want. What’s more is this day bag has a great feel to the material with nice suede detailing and comes in a variety of color options (this one is pewter). All of these color options are also gender neutral, which makes this bag a great fit for anyone’s needs.

Still there is one last aspect of the Travelon Anti-Theft Heritage Tour Bag left that needs consideration. It’s perhaps the most important aspect: price. 

The bag is currently available on Amazon for under just under $50.00 with some small variation in price due to the color options. 

When attempting to pick a day bag, I looked at a lot of bags. Some were cheap and some were vastly more expensive than the Tour Bag, but for me this bag hit at just the right price point. It’s durable, attractive, spacious, and provides a decent level of security - all without breaking your bank. 

If you have any questions about this bag or comments about your favorite travel day bag, leave us a comment below. We’d love to hear from you!