For my early hurricane deployments as an Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Structures Specialist, I used to just sling multiple bags over my shoulders — wear one backpack normally, the other reversed over my chest, and maybe a third slung on one shoulder. This gets old fast if you’re having to transfer between different vehicles or walk on foot any distance at all.
I’m not exactly known as a minimalist packer. As an engineer, I love redundancy and fully subscribe to the “two is one, one is none” mantra of having backups for backups. But the end result of carrying multiple overstuffed bags ended up looking ridiculous and made it tough to move with purpose and efficiency.
So I ended up just purchasing one giant bag,
