I’ve Euro-railed through Italy, from the Colosseum in Rome, to the twisty canals of Venice. I’ve been scuba diving in Nice and saw La Guernica at the Reina Sofia in Madrid. I’ve spent hours staring at La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and gotten lost on Tokyo’s subway more times than I can count. I meditated at a Buddhist shrine in Kyoto and discovered serenity at the Taj Mahal.

None of those adventures would have been possible without my trusty backpack, sometimes my only companion. I’ve held it tight next to me at a hostel in London, for fear that someone would steal it. It fell off a scuba diving boat in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferat, France, and got trampled upon by hordes of people in Bombay when it slipped out of my hands on a chaotic street market. It’s been smooshed up against hundreds of people on a subway from Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, and it served as my pillow during many train rides throughout Europe. I’ve carried months’ worth of clothes in it, including excessive amounts of shirts, sweaters, unnecessary pairs of shoes, and an abundance of accessories for my ever changing mood. I fit it all on my back. I purchased my Mule System Norpad Mountain backpack at the North Face Outlet in Berkeley, California for less than $200 in 2002, a savings of about $100 off retail. It was one of the best investments of my life.

A suitcase won’t cut it when you’re hiking Mount Fuji at 5 a.m. to catch the sunset, or catching a packed, dirty train from Bombay to Pune. I’ve road tested it through a number of continents and countries including Japan, India, Thailand, China, Italy, Spain, Britain, and France and through countless cities. It has stayed sturdy and true to me through all of them. It’s never fallen apart on me, and is almost as good as new even after numerous trips around the world. Even when I’m holding thirty pounds of clothes on my back, it doesn’t weigh me down a bit. It has numerous zippers and pockets to fit all of my travel belongings, from my essential black boots, fancy red flats, and green tennis shoes, to my toothbrush, and that crystal vase I had to buy at the flea market in Florence.