The best backpack, the Goruck GR1
I’ve wanted a Goruck GR1 for a long, long time. The first mention of it on this very blog was all the way back in 2016, although at that time I had probably known about it for a year or two prior to that. It’s been a while.
But every time I was in the market for a new backpack — which, perhaps surprisingly, turned out to be a couple of times over the past 10 years or so — and my gaze once again fell on the GR1 as a potential candidate, I told myself that I didn’t need such an extreme durability backpack, given my generally less-extreme nature. Or that it was too expensive for what it was, or that the USD exchange rate was too awful right now. Or that it was crazy to spend that much on a backpack without having seen or touched it in person, despite being universally praised wherever and whenever I read about it online. All valid enough points, but for the longest time, it was easy to look past a Goruck GR1 for cheaper and more locally-available alternatives, even if they had other compromises and weren’t as durable. Even if I had to buy multiple backpacks after successively running each previous one into the ground, the chances were good that I’d still come out ahead than if I had picked up a GR1.
And as the years came and went, I still found myself glancing at the GR1 occasionally, like an old crush that I never quite got over. As much as Instagram tried to tempt me with “ultimate travel backpacks” or whatever other flavour of the month was being marketed by influencers, the GR1 lived entirely rent-free in my head. I might not have ever owned one, but I had never forgotten it, either.
And then I saw it. The first-ever Goruck GR1 I’ve seen in the flesh. It was in Tokyo, between the flagship 12-storey Uniqlo and heading back home for the night, a lovely Steel-coloured version that had a nice “this is fine” patch. In that moment, I decided that I needed to have one, and after many years spent coveting the most durable backpack, I purchased my first Goruck in November 2023: a GR1 in Wolf Grey and Black.
Only after waiting months for the darn thing to be in stock in a colour other than black. I don’t generally mind black backpacks. But if I was going to carry the backpack around for at least the next few decades, then I wanted something a little lighter in colour. I was tempted by the GR2 in a lighter colour while waiting for the GR1 to be restocked in a lighter colour, but stayed strong and made myself wait.
And wait I did while it was shipped from the USA. And while I waited for it to be shipped, doubt started to creep in. What if I had waited all this time, only for the backpack to be entirely mediocre? Or, worse, for it to not meet the exceptionally high standards I had placed upon it after so long? Would I have been better buying something locally for a third of the price that would last a few years? Or was the GR1 really going to the be-all, endgame backpack that I had wanted for years?
I was wrong to doubt. The GR1 is the best backpack I’ve owned, no doubt in my mind. I’m a year into GR1 ownership, have already taken it overseas, and customised it with my own Australian flag patch1. and it has been the ideal backpack in pretty much every situation. It’s not perfect, but it’s damn close.