You’re probably wondering why I got the absolute craziest multicolored travel backpack possible: it’s because I wanted the Cotopaxi Allpa 42L backpack. It’s an ergonomic and SMART travel pack made for long trips on the road, as well as short weekends away.

Basically, it’s one of the company’s best-sellers and I had to have a go at seeing how it compared to the other travel backpacks I’ve been using for years. Could it be the best new (and sustainable) travel bag on the block, crafted WITH 100% leftover dead-stock fabrics (hence the funky randomness and bright hues)?

In this review, I’ll walk you through all the features this backpack has to offer, as well as a few reasons to consider Cotopaxi’s Del Dia line of travel products made from leftover materials (no two are the same!).

Intro: the new Allpa 42L Travel Backpack

The “all new” Cotopaxi Allpa 42L is an update to a Cotopaxi fan favorite. For a boxy and rectangular travel backpack, it seems to look good on everyone (including me - ha!).

It’s versatile, yet clean-looking, and it’s the big brother/sister to the Allpa 35L and 28L. It’s big on pockets (a necessity for me), with strong zippers and handy zipper pulls, secure laptop storage, a strong hip belt and sternum strap, clamshell opening and rollaboard suitcase trolley sleeve. We’ll get into all the features throughout this review.

This’ll be apparent to you throughout my review: I’m a fan of how it’s responsibly built. If you need a travel backpack, I would suggest getting a sustainable one. There’s already enough waste on earth! One of Cotopaxi’s main tenets is “Guaranteed for Good,” which means that by building high-quality stuff that also won’t go out of style, the need for churn and overconsumption is reduced.

Main pros and cons

Just in short, here are a few pros and cons to think about if you’re considering the Allpa 42L as an adventure backpack.

Pros

  • Weighs LESS (3 lb. 2 oz.) than other bags in its size class (40-45 liters of volume) because of its recycled nylon and recycled ripstop polyester build.
  • Comes in lots of color choices, including the Del Dia dead-stock sustainable fabric collection!
  • Handy travel features like a slim luggage passthrough, sternum strap, thick hip belt, pockets galore and great zippers (I am a zipper snob).
  • Opens clamshell-style, so you can see everything you packed, and use all the interior mesh pockets for organizing.

Cons

  • Kind of has a slouchy look if it’s not full. People who prefer structured bags won’t like this.
  • Doesn’t fit a 16” laptop (only fits up to 15”, which is kind of rare these days for travel bags of this size).
  • Only has one water bottle pocket (this is nitpicky from me, but I like having two, on a bag of this type).

And what about Cotopaxi’s “Del Dia” Collection?

The Del Dia Collection is currently my favorite aspect about shopping for travel bags and products from Cotopaxi.

To start off, let’s consider that every single De Dia backpack, fanny pack, cooler bag, packing cube and sling bag is made from “dead-stock” fabrics. This means they’re made from leftover fabric pieces—the ones that are the remains when fabric templates are cut for travel products that come with set templates for colors.

Cotopaxi says that the Del Dia Collection helps keep excess materials out of landfills, and in turn, makes super fun and colorful products that you can really only get from Cotopaxi.

When you wear a Del Dia travel item from Cotopaxi, you can think about the fact that you’re the ONLY person in the world who has that exact bag. This is a far cry from the brands we’ve been wearing for years—ones that only make backpacks in Black (Tortuga) or ones that make bags in a choice of 4 standard colors (like Peak Design).

The last fun fact about the Cotopaxi Del Dia line is that you can choose “Surprise Me,” which means your Cotopaxi order will come in whichever fabric pieces are on the factory floor when you make your purchase. Let’s get wild! The Del Dia colors are one-of-a-kind and it’ll be like getting a bit of a surprise in the mail, if you’re flexible like that.

Allpa 42L: Best travel features I like

This backpack is different from most others I’ve tried (and I’ve tried a lot of backpacks!). I’ll explain why with this feature explainer below.

Internal cavity organization pockets

I read originally that the Allpa 42L is designed so that you actually don’t need to use packing cubes for your trip. And that’s interesting for us, because we’ve even rated the best packing cubes for travel in other reviews we’ve done on our blog!

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Photo of Becca Siegel and Dan Gold

If you look at the inside of this backpack, which opens clamshell-style (another plus for my travel tastes), you see that you could fill the interior organizer pockets, AND cram stuff in the middle (like a packed-flat jacket). It’s basically built-in packing cubes or packing organizers. I can see why this is appealing to a lot of travelers.

Zipper quality

I’ve mentioned in a lot of my gear reviews to date that I pay special attention to the zippers on my travel backpacks. That is because I once was traveling to Vancouver and my travel daypack zipper BROKE on my way onto the plane. I had to carry it in my arms with my stuff falling everywhere and it was a disaster.

So from that point on, I cal out specific attention to zipper quality on bags. With the Allpa 42L, I like what I see. The main cavity has a “full-wrap” zipper, which means it goes nearly all the way around the backpack. The interior zippers have ergonomic pulls, and the teeth of the zippers zip up very neatly so that the teeth get hidden. See what I mean?

Grab handles

While this seems like something obvious that a lot of backpacks have, the Allpa 42L has helpful grab handles at the top, bottom and side. Truly, you never know when you’re going to need to “grab” your backpack. Through the years, I’ve had to quickly figure out where to get my hands securely on my travel backpack, like when it gets thrown off a long-distance bus in Southeast Asia. Think fast!

With the Del Dia model that I got for my Allpa 42L, you can be sure the handles are all random colors and add to that multicolor rainbow frenzy of brightness.

Luggage pass-through (suitcase trolley sleeve)

While it is kind of hidden into the back panel of the backpack, yes: the Allpa 42L backpack has a pass-through strap for rolling suitcases like my Quince hard shell luggage that I always use for big trips nowadays.

You’ll notice it’s designed to be pretty slim and pretty tight. Depending on how full I’ve packed the bag, it’ll affect how simple it is to slide the backpack sideways onto the handle of my luggage. If I haven’t overstuffed it, things work out fine.

Hip belt and sternum strap

These are the two features that help me, a petite person who needs all the back support I can get, to wear a 42-liter travel backpack if it’s weighing upwards of 20 lbs. Once I’ve packed a bag for any type of trip, really, I start using the hip belt on a backpack. The hip belt is able to be tucked in, which is why it looks kind of thin. But it’s strong, made of mesh.

And the sternum strap for across-the-chest weight management is crucial for me, as I mention for a lot of the travel bags I review in my list of the best travel backpacks for women. The buckle itself can be slid up and down, so that I can find the best place to clasp it for supporting the volume inside.

What I don’t like as much

There are a few features that fall short, in my opinion and experience. You might agree with the following shortcomings on the Allpa 42L backpack.

Only one water bottle pocket

In a lot of the backpacks I’ve used, two water bottle pockets come in pretty handy, especially if I am in transit. Given that the Allpa 42L is basically a carry-on bag, I might find myself on a layover with it, or sitting with it while waiting to change buses on a backpacking trip. Dual-side water bottle pockets come in handier than just one, in my opinion.

Slouchy appearance when half empty

Or is it when it’s half full? Either way, because this backpack is less structured (but also weighs less!) than the competition, which I consider our backpacks like the Tortuga Travel Backpack and the Peak Design Travel Backpack, it slouches and sags a bit more if it’s not packed full.

If you’re into a structured look and a bag that holds its shape all the time, I suggest looking into those other two options from other brands.

Does not hold a 16” laptop

While I have a 13” MacBook Air, and Dan has a 15” MacBook Pro, I know that some travelers travel with a 16” laptop. This is a common size, and a lot of backpacks are sized to appropriately handle a laptop of this dimension.

I’m surprised that the Allpa 42L doesn’t support the extra inch of computer length in the laptop sleeve, but then again, it’s possible that Cotopaxi did their market research and made the decision for a reason.

Conclusion: Is this a good travel backpack?

Coming from Cotopaxi, yes: this is a brand I trust (I also have the Coso 2L Hip Pack—what a great travel essential!), so the Allpa 42L backpack is great to have if you need a do-it-all travel backpack.

Based on the quality alone, I think I’ve mentioned how important it is to have good zippers on a travel backpack, as well as other things that are just going to “work well” through the years. My former Quechua travel backpack started fraying and having interior lining that was disintegrating, and that’s the type of thing you probably won’t experience with a Cotopaxi travel bag.

Further, I want to touch on the Cotopaxi warranty: the company will replace ANY Cotopaxi product that is affected by a manufacturing issue, for the lifetime of the product. That means forever! This of course does not include issues stemming from regular wear and tear and continued use. But it does include fixing issues that come from the production of the product itself.

You can see more about Cotopaxi product repairs online.

What is the Cotopaxi Allpa collection?

Plainly put, the Cotopaxi Allpa line is a quintessential and basic style of travel pack gear that Cotopaxi developed, engineered to be versatile. In this line, I’ve found the Cotopaxi Allpa backpacks, the Allpa Hip Packs (like a fanny pack, for hands-free wear) and the Allpa “Gear Haulers” (branded as being good for road trips, hauling “stuff” and being a rugged type of tote-style bag).

Then, there’s the Allpa Duffel Bag and the Allpa 38L Roller Bag, which is a carry-on-sized mid-size travel bag that comes with the hybrid effect of wheels like a roller suitcase.

The Allpa backpacks come in sizes from the 20L mini to the 42-liter backpack that I reviewed in this article. They’re all smartly-designed, compact, pretty lightweight, strong and durable.

As for “Del Dia” recycled dead-stock fabric options (”Surprise Me!”), you can get a Del Dia pack in both backpacks AND the Gear Hauler Totes! (The Del Dia style is my favorite way to own Cotopaxi travel products).

Where to get the Allpa 42L travel backpack

According to Cotopaxi, they sell this bag constantly, and all the time. (I’ll still plug that I think everyone should get it in a Del Dia sustainable style!). You can get one in the following places:

  • Cotopaxi.com: and sign up for the email list to get 20% off your first order!
  • Amazon: colors in stock may vary.
  • REI.com: colors in stock may vary and shipping is free.
  • Backcountry.com: fewest choice of colors, but also ships free.

Get Cotopaxi at a discount

While we don’t have a discount code for Cotopaxi, a great way to get Cotopaxi products at a steep discount is by shopping the sale promotions. If you’re new to the brand and want to get a deal on Cotopaxi products, why not start with 40% or 50% off something awesome?

Note that you may find a limit on available sizes for any given color, but if you’re flexible (I usually am), then you might find something you love, and pay HALF of what the regular price would be.

Plus: Cotopaxi makes a lot of limited-edition color combinations and color choices for things like jackets, vests and even backpacks, so you could wind up with something that won’t exist next year! Pretty neat.