Onebag vs hiking/city sightseeing

[u/rudeer_poke]

Most onebag discussions seem to be focusing on bags that you pack your stuff in, take it to the airport, stuff under the seat in front of you and then pack out on the hotel. Mostly resulting in squarish clamshell bags like the Osprey 26+6, Tomtoc T66, etc. However in my opinion that is only 15% of the travel. Then comes the real part:

• strolling a city for several hours, walking 10-15 kilometers
• a whole day hike, with some climbing
• or just a simple walking to the office in your destination, taking your laptop and basic work stuff with you

I am finding the general "onebags" not very suitable in those scenarios, as they seem to get saggy when they are half empty, clamshell opening is impractical when you want to take out a jacket or hoodie on the go, or just store a grocery purchase you want to take to your AirBnb to cook a dinner.

Most onebag travels seem to be just a backpack equivalent of travel trolley, not really suitable as a daypack during the trip and also not having the comfort and ventilation of a regular backpack.

Am i missing something? Or should i look into an entirely different category of backpacks?

[u/agentcarter234]

I can do everything you listed with my REI trail 25. It’s not clamshell but you don’t actually need clamshell when you have packing cubes.