Customer Reviews The North Face Base Camp Duffel - XL

Durable holds a lot of stuff. Very satisfied.

Using this bag for a week long trip and everything fits perfect! Two pairs of shoes and a week long of clothing easily fit in here. can't wait to buy another!

This is a perfect travel duffel. It will easily survive years of airplanes, cars, buses, mules, etc. Slick black or styling colors, either way you'll find yours easily on the luggage carousel or pile of gear. My only grip is the shoulder straps. Other brands have quick-release shoulder straps and NF needs to add this feature to this bag. It's a total hassle to have to unthread four webbing strap buckles to get the straps off while you're holding up an airport line. I almost bought another brand simple because of the straps. It's time NF, add bomber shoulder strap quick-releases and this would get 6 stars (or of 5).

Great so far, seems high quality and well made. Seems a bit smaller than expected but I haven't measured.

Iam doing a long trip through southeastasia and i bought this duffrlbag before. Its practical because you have easy acces to your clothing and you dont hsve to unpack everythibg like in a normal backpack. The big con is that is really not made for long distance walks. My shoulders hurts after 10minutes of carrying it. If they would have a extra waistbelt this bag would be perfect for travelling!

The bag is well made but poorly designed. Even people who rave about it note the problems with badly designed and placed straps. Sorry, this is an "Except for that Mrs. Lincoln" bag.

I have used this bag on every trip I have taken this summer, and it is still a great bag. It is generally water resistant, although the bottom fabric is less resistant. The main issue I have with this bag is the straps. The bag is quite large and reaches from the top of my neck past my back. When the bag is full, it holds weight well if you use the handles on any side, but the straps designed to allow you to carry it as a backpack, often fail. They fall out of the plastic adjustment piece because the cloth strap only has an individual line of string to secure it. If they provided better straps so that it could be easily transported through an airport/foreign environment as a backpack, I would be thrilled.

I don't like the new handles on these bags. I have several of the old style and was shocked when I got my new bag home and discovered the handles were gone.

I own two of these, a medium, and an xtra large, that I've used for years, for everything from gear hauling to motorcycle camping. They've survived falls, bike drops, and the TSA. So it was a no brainer to get another for my wife for a tandem motorcycle adventure- at least until I saw the new "improved" version. As others have pointed out, the removal of the side straps makes grabbing and carrying the bag awkward. The shoulder straps are a pain to remove and reattach, and are far more intrusive than the side straps ever were. And the new medium at least is smaller than the old version. So they took a near perfect bag and made it worse. I can only imagine the sales meeting at which this redesign was pitched. I bought a first gear roll top bag for 2/3 the price and won't go back. Ciao guys.

I can't lock the duffel with a padlock anymore!!! I didn't even check the zipper because that's one of the best features for traveling. Please fire the genius who decided to take them of. Thank you.

First of all, I got this because of the size and tough material. I've just looked at it online but I'm surprised that it is not the same as advertised on their video! The video has shown that the zippers have the wholes to put a padlock. Mine doesn't and is just an ordinary zipper without any hole to put the locks! Second, the design was of the handles was different! There used to be to handles with velcro that you use if you don't want to carry as backpack! I totally overlooked this when I was too excited to buy this. :(

This bag looks great on the photos but on the side you can't see in the photo there's a giant North Face logo across the whole bag. I don't like any big logo on anything I use or wear. Also the material is very stiff.

GOOD

I have had my XL duffel for about 18 years. Mine has interior pockets on each side. They took them out for some reason on later models Anyway I have used it more lately as a carry on because of the switch to paying for luggage. This bag has a great ability to compress into the necessary shapes of overhead compartments. Now the biggest downside to this bag and they deleted my comment before is the fact when you have a lot of stuff in this bag the shoulder straps are not enough to prevent fatigue... They needed to put a simple (REMOVEABLE) waist-strap on this bag. When you have to walk through Dallas airport with a stuffed XL Duffel and wait in line or whatever and you have other bags and the straps are supposed to help they do not help for very long... These weak straps will make your shoulders tired in no time at all!!!

Solid bag and would be perfect if they would bring back the handles and make the backpack straps quick release.

The dimensions of this bag exceed the maximum allowed by most airlines by over 3". This could cost you a $200 oversize charge on American Airlines.

Didn't catch that the new design if this bag: lacks side strap handles, no locking zipper, and fewer lash loops. Will return it and look elsewhere.

I own several of these bags in almost every size and I needed a new one for gear and oh was I disappointed. What happened to the straps? If I were to change anything from the straps, I would have made the shoulder straps easier to remove to have a quicker access to the inside, but no, you had to change a feature that apparently most of us miss. My overall feeling is why? Another thing that I miss is the color options, you had really cool bright (I do not mean hipster neon) green ones. Please bring the straps back.

For such a durable looking bag, it struck me it's unable to withstand the lightest drizzle. Tied on the back of my motorcycle, my clothes were soaked after the first rain drops. Northface could have used a lighter material given any water resistance is not present. (Small and medium in use, both have the same issue) Sure it can be transported up a mountain via a yak - on very sunny days.

Have to agree with NG's review from October 2016. I bought this bag in summer 2016 for camping specifically to keep my stuff dry in event of getting caught in the rain. It finally happened just this weekend coming back from a camping trip and had a 10 minute rain shower. Bag WAS completely and securely zipped. Was in the bed of my truck. Opened bag to clean out and found many articles of clothing damp and water droplets in the bottom. Items on the top of the bag were damp too. Will contact North Face customer service. Hopefully it was just bad batch.

I bought this as a weekend bag. It's great, however... it would be nice if it had a shoulder strap... The backpack straps are great but are not convenient when you just need to pick up the bag quickly and are too big to sling just on your shoulder because they don't stay together. I felt a little mislead after receiving the bag as I had seen someone else with one and it had a shoulder strap. So I'm not sure what happened to this line of bags that don't have one.

I bought this bag because of the great reviews and perhaps I just got a dud...I took it on a camping trip where it rained and my contents got wet. Unfortunately, I can return it but I'll be sending it in for replacement. I was specifically looking for a waterproof bag.

I love my back, bur was dissapointed to find out, that tre shoulderstrap has ben omdigtes in tre updated version. :-(

I have owned several TNF duffels in different sizes. Family is growing so I purchased a new XL bag. Very disappointed with some of the changes. Why did you change the carry handles on the bag? The new handles are useless. It makes it very difficult to carry the bag around unless you plan to drag the bag or use the shoulder straps. Also, the new shoulder straps get in the way of the main compartment when open. Please bring back the old bag style carry handles, and add snap removable clips to the shoulder straps so they can easily be removed for airline travel when checking in the bag. In terms of durability and capacity the bag is still excellent. The main reason I am keeping mine instead of sending it back.

I've purchased at least seven of the old model. Fantastic bag. The new model is a step backwards. It is hard to carry without the center straps and it's also a lot more difficult to secure the bag to a roof rack w/o the center straps. The new side handles are near useless. Why even bother adding them, so two people can carry a bag? Please put the main handles back, please.