Kelly,

I've been using an Eagle Creek Continental Journey (http://www.eaglecreek.com/adventure_travel_packs.html) and really like it (sorry, I know I'm not answering the question you asked, but it seemed just related enough to be worth sharing). It's not exactly clear from their website, but it has a zip off day pack attached to the main pack. The benefit of this to me is that when I'm in travel mode (airport, train station, etc.) it all zips together and I only have one bag to deal with.

To protect my iBook I use a Brain Cell from Tom Bihn (http://www.tombihn.com/page/001/PROD/300/TB0300), since there is nothing laptop-centric about the day pack (my pack is about 7 years old, so I’m sure it differs some from what they're offering now). It fits nicely in my day pack and I don’t have to worry so much about what else I load in there. If I was buying today, I’d probably go for their Monolith sleeve, but that wasn’t available for 12” iBooks when I bought mine.

More directly to your question, Tom Bihn also makes a variety of laptop packs. I don’t have any of them, but I can say based on their Brain Cell that they put some thought into actually protecting your laptop, which I like. However, like Crumpler, they’re not by any means cheap.

Best of luck with your trip. I’ve enjoyed reading your chronicles thus far.

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