Tortuga Setout 35L versus Osprey Fairview 40L

A female’s perspective on two of the most popular carry-on travel bags.

You know that feeling when you find your first love? Thinking he or she is the one? That there is no one better than them? That they are perfect in every way? Then, as time moves on, you may start to realize there are traits that are missing from this person, qualities that you didn’t even initially know you desired because you were new to the game. Eventually, you find someone who has the things you were looking for all along, even things you didn’t know you needed. But that first love will always have a special place in your heart, because it wasn’t that it was bad, it just wanted the perfect fit for you. This is the story of my travel bag journey.

The Osprey Fairview 40 has been with me on several trips to Europe, down to Texas, north to Maine, and road tripping through Canada. We’ve put on some miles together. While this is a fantastic bag that I could happily continue to travel the world with, I will tell you the pros and cons of each bag, and why I have decided to bring the Tortuga Setout 35L along with me for my next adventure.

A sister bag to the Farpoint 40, the Osprey Fairview 40 is built for a women’s smaller frame. From the way that the shoulder straps are positioned on the bag to sit on smaller body frames, to the design of the hip belt, this bag is geared towards a female’s body type. I always felt this bag was very comfortable for me, even when fully packed out. The Osprey’s internal frame gives the bag some structure without making it too heavy, and the load-lifters help keep some of the weight off of your shoulders.

The Tortuga Setout 35L has a version that is also built with a female frame in mind. It also boasts many of the same great features as the Fairview, including a hip belt, load lifters, internal storage pockets, and a laptop compartment. This bag is structured, but does not have a full internal frame, and I have been able to carry the bag for long periods of time without any problem.

Looking at the internal components of the two bags, the Fairveiw pack has internal compression straps, which are nice to hold flat items in place, while the Setout does not. This was helpful when putting jeans along the back side of my pack, but not necessarily needed when using packing cubes.

Both bags have a suitcase style opening which provides easy access to your items. The Setout opens like a book while the Fairview folds down. Both feature an internal mesh pocket on the inside flap. The pocket on the Fairview is large and can fit many items, but lacks organization due to it being one big space. The Tortuga Setout actually has two pockets instead of one, allowing for more organization.

Both bags have a nice sized internal pocket in front of the main compartment, each with further internal organization, places for pens and even for bulkier items. The Tortuga has a clip that has been useful for storing keys, a carabiner, rubber bands, you name it. The Osprey’s pocket can zip further down, allowing for better visual and access of the pocket.

One of the biggest differences in the two bags is the position of the laptop compartments. Although I don’t often travel with a laptop, the Tortuga’s laptop compartment is against your back, keeping the weight closer to you. There is sufficient padding and it also includes a false bottom design, so your computer won’t slam into the ground when you set your bag down.

A drawback to the Osprey’s laptop compartment is its location. Instead of being right next to your back, the laptop compartment is located in one of the most external pockets, putting one of your heaviest items away from your body.

The rectangular shape of the Tortuga adds much appreciated corner space without making the bag itself much bigger. While my Setout is supposed to be 5L smaller than my Fairview, I feel I can pack all of the same things plus have a little extra space thanks to space gained in the Setout due to the corners.

The rounded corners in the Osprey bag design actually reduce much sought-after space in the bag. Corners will not make or break a bag in terms of carry-on size (all of the sizers I’ve ever seen are rectangular), so losing the corners just take away from space that rectangular packing cubes can occupy.

Another difference in these two bags is their water bottle holders. The design is much more useable on the Setout, even when the bag is full. Although it is located on the side of the bag instead of the front, I will admit I still have a difficult time reaching it when the bag is on. However, I am thankful to have a pocket I can easily fit a bottle in.

With the Fairview, it was an annoyance to me was that the water bottle pockets were basically useless if the bag is fully packed. It was a struggle to get a bottle down into a fully packed bag. Plus, with their location being on the frontside of the bag, the water bottle pockets are impossible to easily reach on your own, even if you do have enough space for a bottle.

The expernal compression straps on the Tortuga stay out of the way due to their position on the sides. The drawback to this is that it doesn’t make the front of the bag look smaller when compressed.

If you are using the external compression straps on the Osprey, the whole bag can be compressed. The flaw in the design on this one is that you must first unbuckle the straps in order to get into the main compartment. While minor, this adds an extra step to opening the bag.

Both of the bags come with nice hip belts included with the bags. Due to the design, the ones on the Tortuga can be removed, while the ones for the Osprey cannot. This comes into play with packing up the bags to become checked luggage, which I’ll touch on shortly.

A nice feature of the Setout is that each hip belt has a zippered pocket that is convenient for storing little things like train tickets, boarding passes or whatever you need for quick access. I will note that they’re slightly too small for my iPhone 8 Plus, but I would imagine any smaller phone would fit in there just fine.

Both packs are suitable to become a checked bag if needed and have features to help you hide buckles and straps. The Tortuga makes this a little more difficult as you must remove the hip straps, and unhook the shoulder straps in order to tuck them all away. You will have to reattach everything before the bag is ready to go again. Also, the load lifter straps are still out and could get caught on something while going through the luggage checking process.

The Osprey has a flap that is hidden away, and you can zip up all of the straps until this flap when you’re ready to store them away. There seems to be less hanging straps exposed with this setup than with the Tortuga’s design.

Looking at the shoulder straps, the Tortuga design has more padding than the Osprey, but they both have ample enough strap cushioning to be comfortable.

Thankfully I never was in a situation to need a whistle, there is a built-in whistle on the sternum strap on the Fairview. This would be helpful when trying to either draw attention to oneself to get attention, depending on the situation.

Black luggage tends to not show dirt as easily and actually can appear smaller than the same bag in a brighter color. This can be helpful when trying not to attract attention to your bag for weight or size restrictions. The Osprey only comes in Misty Grey (almost an olive green) and Rainforest Green (similar to emerald green) so black is not an option.

Stylewise, the Tortuga Setout has a more minimalistic design, with clean lines and solid, neutral colors. The Osprey Fairview has more design elements, colors and logos on it. Whichever you prefer is is all a matter of personal preference. I am drawn to the more simplistic bag that doesn’t stand out as much.

I have noticed that when packing the Tortuga Setout bag, the straps do not allow the bag to completely lay flat, making a bump you have to pack around until you get weight in it.

They are close in weight with the Tortuga being 3.6 lbs and the Osprey coming in at 3.2 lbs. This is only a minor difference. Also, both bags meet the carry-on size requirements for almost all airlines, even the really picky ones. For comparison, the Tortuga Setout 35L is 21.5”H x 13.5”W x 7.5”D and the Osprey’s dimensions are 21.3”H x 13.8”W x 9”D.

I have been pleased with both of the backpacks and don’t feel like you can go wrong with either one. It’s a tough decision between the tried and true Osprey or the new kid on the block, Tortuga. After traveling with the Tortuga Setout 35L for about a month and a half at this point, I’d have to say the Tortuga slightly edges the Osprey by just a few details. While the Osprey is a great bag and comes from a very solid company, I really appreciate the water bottle design, use of corners, minimalistic design and laptop compartment placement of the Tortuga Setout.

You can read my full packing list here.

All of these opinions are my own based on any experience traveling with and using these bags. I purchased these bags with my own money and have received no compensation for these reviews.