NOMATIC Travel Bag 40L Review: Does the Conversion Trick Actually Work?

A bag that claims to be two bags at once has one job to prove before anything else: does the switch actually work, or is it a marketing line printed on a pocket. We bought the NOMATIC Travel Bag 40L, packed it for a five-day trip, and used the conversion in both directions more times than any normal traveler would in a year, just to see where it broke.

The conversion, tested past the point of patience

Zip open the back panel, pull the stowed shoulder straps free, and the bag goes from a duffel with top handles to a backpack in well under a minute once your hands know the sequence. Our first attempt took closer to three minutes, mostly spent hunting for where the straps hide. By the tenth conversion it was automatic. The mechanism itself never jammed or frayed across a full week of daily use, which matters more than the speed number, since a strap system that fails after a month makes the whole idea pointless. Where it costs you: that same mechanism adds structural bulk you can feel when the bag is empty, a stiffness that a simple duffel or a simple backpack never carries because neither has to fold a second identity into its frame.

Twelve pockets, and only some of them earn their space

NOMATIC packed 12 internal pockets into 40 liters, including a dedicated shoe compartment and a waterproof bottle sleeve that held a leaking sunscreen bottle without a single drop reaching our clothes. The shoe pocket kept a pair of trail runners fully separated from packed shirts, which is the exact problem this style of pocket exists to solve. Some of the smaller pockets, though, were awkward to reach once the main compartment was full, a common tradeoff in bags this heavily subdivided. The 16-inch laptop sleeve deserves a specific mention: our test laptop rode through two flights and one rough taxi ride with zero padding compression, sitting in its own protected slot away from anything that could crush it.

The weight problem nobody hides, but everybody underplays

At 3.42 lbs empty, this bag weighs meaningfully more than most 40-liter carry-ons built without a conversion system, and that number sits before a single item goes inside. On a trip with a strict airline weight limit, that starting weight eats into your allowance before packing begins. We noticed it most when the bag sat fully loaded on a scale next to a simpler duffel of the same volume: the difference was close to a full pound, which on some budget carriers is the gap between fitting under a limit and paying a fee. Anyone flying a strict low-cost route should weigh this bag loaded before assuming it clears the same limit as a lighter pack.

Zippers and ventilation: the two rough edges

Two issues showed up repeatedly during testing that NOMATIC doesn't advertise. First, the main zippers felt stiff straight out of the box and stayed that way through the whole trip, never loosening the way most zippers do with use. Second, the back panel has no ventilation channel, so a warm afternoon walking with the bag worn as a backpack left a visible sweat mark that a mesh-backed pack would have avoided. Neither issue is a dealbreaker, but both are the kind of detail a glossy product page leaves out, and they matter to anyone covering real distance on foot rather than rolling straight from a taxi to a check-in counter.

Price against the field

At $329.99, this bag sits well above straightforward 40L carry-on packs that don't attempt the duffel-backpack switch, some of which cost $150 to $200 less for comparable capacity and comfort. That premium buys the conversion, the shoe pocket, the laptop sleeve, and a lifetime warranty that NOMATIC backs with actual customer support rather than a fine-print disclaimer. Whether that math works depends entirely on how often the buyer actually plans to switch carry styles, since paying extra for flexibility you never use is the same as paying extra for nothing.

Checking the fit on the go

We also pulled up the product page on a phone mid-trip to double-check the dimensions against an overhead bin, and the mobile layout kept the same specs and images readable without extra scrolling tricks, which is a small but real convenience when you're standing at a gate arguing with yourself about whether a bag fits.

Who should actually buy this

Buy the NOMATIC Travel Bag 40L if you regularly need one bag that behaves like a backpack for the walk to a hostel and a duffel for a business trip check-in, since that's the specific problem the conversion solves and it solves it well. Skip it if you only ever use one carry style, since you'd be paying a real weight and price premium for a feature that never gets used, and a lighter dedicated pack will serve you better on every metric except versatility.