All the Nifty Travel Gear That Kept us Organised in Japan

This blog post is a paid for advertorial in collaboration with Bellroy.
Items that were received as PR product are marked with an asterisk * 
Read the disclaimer about affiliate links & PR products here. 

Estimated read time: 10 minutes

For this next instalment of my Japan travel series on the blog, I wanted to talk through the nifty travel gear that served us on our travels. In case you’ve missed the memo, or you’re coming into this blog post without the benefit of reading Part 1, we’ve recently come back from Japan and it was an amazing family holiday. Our first time overseas as a family of six and with our youngest now five, we felt ready to embark on an overseas adventure that he’ll hopefully have some memory of. In the first part of my travel series, I shared a rundown of our trip, including where we stayed, ate, and the sights our kids enjoyed most (in their own words). So let’s delve into all of the useful and nifty travel gear that came along with us on our trip that kept us organised.

Aside from our luggage, all of the backpacks, smaller crossbody bags and travel accessories we used were exclusively from Bellroy. It’s well documented that I’m a huge fan of the brand, particularly for the office, and while I’ve taken their gear with me on short interstate trips for work, it was great to put their pieces to use for our family holiday where there was a lot more “stuff” in the equation. In this post, I’m going to talk about every single item we used on our trip, including mini reviews on each, so you can get the gist of how they served us practically. 

For those unfamiliar, Bellroy is an Australian carry and accessories brand that specialises in making carry goods, including bags, folios and wallets. Their designs are smart, functional and minimal and the quality of their gear is designed to last. We bumped into a fair few Australians on our travels and found a lot of them wearing Bellroy. It was really nice to see! 

I’ll be separately posting a video of everything I packed over on my YouTube channel but it’s useful context to know that we travelled with carry-on baggage only. It required some discipline when it came to packing but we maximised the carry-on cabin allowance. Carting around less stuff just meant that we saved ourselves the trouble of dealing with large unwieldy bags with all the train travel we did. But it also meant that we needed to be strategic with how we packed, which is where our Bellroy gear took care of us.

Alrighty, let’s get to it. I’m going to sort out the gear into categories to hopefully keep as much order in this post as possible! 

Backpacks

Aside from our youngest, each of us had a backpack at our disposal which we used to cart all of our knick-knacks while flying and bullet-training (the backpacks were stowed under the seats in front of us). We also made use of them on “bigger days” – like our day trips as well as our big Disneyland day. Here’s are all the backpacks that came along for the adventure:

Lite Ready Pack

Let’s kick things off with the Lite Ready Pack – my husband’s backpack of choice. The design and internal configuration is identical to my much-loved Venture Ready Pack (a main compartment that zips right open and a quick access “brain” section that sits on top), but this is its lightweight cousin. The Lite Ready Pack is made from a durable lightweight material that’s been treated with a water-resistant coating meaning your gear won’t get soaked through if you’re stuck in the rain. We didn’t intend to test this, but the weather-proof nature of the bag took a shining when we hiked Mount Takao on a rainy day. Despite the heavy rainfall, everything stayed dry inside (including the passports stored in the brain section, copping most of the rainfall!).  

The internal volume capacity totals 18L so it swallowed the essentials including an umbrella, water bottles, jacket, kindle to name a few. Despite this, it only weighs 350g. There’s even a thin strap that can be adjusted across the chest which acts as a sternum strap which is simple in its design but a welcome feature to have when you’re carrying a bag all day and wrangling the kids. 

Laneway Totepack

I chose to take my Laneway Totepack with me, which I had been using regularly at home before our trip. I consider it to be the “dressier” bag of my casual Bellroy totes and I love the colour as it just goes with everything. As per its name, it’s designed to be worn as both a backpack and a tote bag (though I found myself using it mainly as a backpack during our trip). On travel days, thanks to its 18L volume capacity, it comfortably housed my iPad, cameras, notebooks, make-up pouch and my smaller organisation pouches (which I talk about further in this post) where I kept all of our knick-knacks tidy and to hand – like medication, snacks, the boys’ stationary etc. 

Classic Backpack

Our older boys (Masters 14 & 12) brought along their Classic Backpacks from Bellroy that have been part of their wardrobes for the past year. This is an OG bag from the brand and the design has gone through various improvements over the years. While the boys’ bags are over a year old, they’re still in great condition, having lived several lives as their one-time school backpacks and now their go-to travel bags for our interstate trips to see family. The boys were able to pack all of their “essentials” for the flight (ie. electronics (lol) like their iPads, Nintendo Switch) and used the bags on day trips to stow their water bottles, jumpers and snacks. 

Tokyo Totepack Compact

My 7 year old didn’t get a choice in the backpack he could take (his mother can be quite strict 😉) and while he wanted to mirror his older brothers with the classic backpack I mentioned above, he was imposed with a mini version of one of my favourite bags – the Tokyo Totepack in the Compact size. The smaller version of the bag has a volume capacity of 14L (in comparison to the 20L volume capacity of the original size). And the bag style remains a favourite of mine for a reason – the internal compartments are great and it’s super comfortable to wear. In fact, I “stole” the bag from my son and ended up wearing it on a several days, as I love the structure of the bag. It was also very satisfying to bring along a bag from Bellroy’s Tokyo line to its namesake city. 

Crossbody bags

Crossbody bags reigned supreme during our travels and no one does it better than Bellroy in this category. It’s been well established that I’ve loved using mine for years, but I made fans out of my husband and older boys as they came to realise the potential of the bags and experience the convenience and magic for themselves. They loved the ease and accessibility; the older two boys also remarked on how they loved the independence of reaching for their own snacks and water whenever they pleased. Here’s a rundown of the crossbody bags we used: 

Laneway Crossbody

The Laneway crossbody bag served as my go-to crossbody throughout the trip, and it’s a bag that I’d been using regularly at home. I love the Laneway range (pretty obvious from this blog post!), particularly this khaki colour, and I particularly love the lightweight and smooth fabric. The Laneway crossbody bag also a zip pocket at the back to store your passports which I recommend you take with you everywhere, for tax free shopping purposes (see below). 

Laneway Sacoche

I also had the Laneway Sacoche bag as an alternative to the Laneway crossbody, which I consider to be a dressier bag for dinners. The minimal design and thin strap reminds me a lot of the Celine Trio in its aesthetic. The main compartment is expandable, so capacity is again, not an issue with this bag. It’s made of a durable nylon fabric that can be stored flat or folded away when not in use. 

Lite Sling Mini

Don’t let the name fool you, because this ‘mini’ bag proved to be the complete opposite. It’s the smaller version of the original Lite Sling bag which has a volume capacity of 7L and the ‘mini’ version has a capacity of 4L. Personally, the mini version is the superior size as it still packs a punch but it looks better proportioned on the body being more compact. This bag served as my husband’s go-to crossbody, another bag from Bellroy’s ‘lite’ range (he has a type), made from its durable and lightweight fabric. It could easily hold several passports, water bottle, battery pack, sunglasses, wallet – basically all of the daily essentials required – and it’s a very comfortable bag to wear. 

Venture Ready Sling

Our 14 and 12 year old boys each carted a rugged Venture Ready Sling on the days they carried crossbody bags. As I mentioned earlier, they loved the ease and accessibility of having all of their gear within reach. The 2.5L volume capacity meant they could each fit a water bottle in their bags (which meant my husband and I were spared from carrying that additional weight in our bags), and they also stored lollies and snacks they bought daily from convenience stores in the front pockets (mainly sour gummies, specifically the grape flavoured fettuccine candy lol). 

Other travel accessories

L to R: Travel Folio, Lite Pouch Duo, Tech Kit, Toiletries Kit

To round out this post, it should come as no surprise that my usual travel go-tos also came along on this trip, including the Toiletries Bag and Tech Kit, which have been part of my collection for a while. The Tech Kit ensures all of my cables, chargers and adapters are housed in the one place, and the Toiletries Kit has ample room to hold all of my lotions and potions in a smart clamshell design that opens up wide (so no need for rummaging). 

I also loved using these pouches from Bellroy, they’re lightweight and great for compartmentalising all of your gear that normally sits loose. I had separate pouches for medication, the boys’ stationary, and loved how organised everything remained in my bag. Finally the Travel Folio was an excellent home for all of our tickets, receipts and travel documents that we wanted to keep safe in a zipped folio. There’s room to store two passports and also a pen, to fill in those incoming passenger cards. 

As always, thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you found my rundown of all the Bellroy travel gear & accessories to be useful. It means so much to me when you leave a comment or share with friends.