Today’s best packs either have an internal frame system or essentially none at all. Beginning backpackers should look for an internal frame pack. Why? Super ultralight frameless packs are better for backpackers who go extremely light, packing less and lighter gear than most everyone else. They know how to stuff a frameless pack for a solid experience. Newbies are far more likely to overwhelm a frameless pack and end up with a bad experience. So steer clear until you have a few trips under your belt.
osprey backpacking packs best review
The excellent men’s Osprey Atmos 65 AG backpack features an “Anti-Gravity” mess suspension system. For women, choose the Aura AG 65.
There are three key elements to an internal frame backpack — the hip belt, the stiff internal frame materials (like aluminum rods or plastic frame sheets), and your shoulder straps.
The hip belt will support much of the weight of a loaded pack. An internal frame will provide overall stability as well as help transfer pack weight more directly to your hip belt with less sag or sway. Your shoulder straps don’t have to be super-padded, but we usually appreciate more padding than less. Shoulder straps are more for stability, but sometimes you’ll want to shift portions of where you bear the load from your shoulder straps to your hips or vice-versa by tightening or loosening these straps while hiking.
Fortunately, today’s major brand-name backpacks — while having slightly different systems — are all so good, durable, and light that a beginner really can’t go wrong. If you stray beyond a handful of experienced outdoor brands, you odds of having a failure on the trail quickly rise.
So here’s a tip: A good tent is important, but I think backpacks are even more important — so invest in a good pack. Once you do, your pack will take on new meaning: A great pack is a key to the backcountry, a key to adventure, to breathing fresh mountain air, seeing big mountains, big sky, and getting away from it all. A good pack will call to you, speak to you, encourage you to get off your ass and get back out there.
I’m not kidding.