I love just about everything Rick Steves.  The Civita day bag, for instance, is about the most useful and indestructible item I've ever purchased.  My husband and I use our all the time and give them as gifts.  A few years ago we got excited about ultralight backpack travel and had bought two large no-name packs on sale somewhere.  They were fantastic!  I hadn't practiced quite enough and some back trouble the first few days, but then got better and we traveled for a month using them happily.  We decided to upgrade for our next ultralight trip. So I was excited to receive these bags from Amazon a few weeks before another long overseas vacation.  After all, the ultra traveler Rick Steves said this was his favorite bag.  So it must be great, right?  It isn't.  They aren't.  The quality is great.  The fabric and zipper and straps and all excellent.  The compartment design is also excellent - a place for everything and everything in its place.  The problem?  It is a bafflingly weird and inconvenient fat, deep, boxy cube shape.  It is MUCH too fat/deep/boxy to walk down an aisle or stand in a line or go on public transport or get through crowded doorways, etc.  And it's awkward.  It's as though the whole mass of stuff is sticking straight out behind you, while there would be PLENTY of room to fit snugly and sleekly up and down your back in a more elongated shape.  Why in the world is it designed this way?  Our bags shoot straight out like Santa's bag of toys.  There is another bad design issue:  where the straps come out of the zip-away compartment there is no tie-down or snap to keep the gaping opening closed, so the bag hands backward another 2-3 inches because there's no way to snap or cinch it up.  I'm sorry to say that I never use this bag for travel at all.  It's good for a soft bag for use with car travel, but not as a vacation bag.  Such a disappointment!  And such a surprise!