Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36 Bag Review
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When you’re headed out for an adventure where you need to pack everything including the kitchen sink, finding luggage to match those needs isn’t always easy to do. I’ve been testing out the Eagle Creek Gear Warrior Wheeled Duffel 36″ luggage over the past couple months to see how it matches up to both hauling outdoor gear as well as using it for business trips.
Is Size Everything?
In a suitcase, Size DOES matter…. To start, this luggage is very tall, about 4 inches taller than the average rolling luggage. At first, I thought it was a little odd shaped since I was used to your typical 32″ rolling suitcase. After I started packing with the Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36″, I grew to love the additional space. My last big trip that I took the gear warrior on was a planes, trains, and cars type of trip to Canada over the course of 2 weeks. When you’re an active person, you tend to pack double the clothing normal people do because you need running clothing, bike clothing, hiking clothing, etc. in addition to your regular casual or business clothing.
When getting on and off trains, having one large suitcase is much easier to use than having multiple pieces of smaller luggage. For traveling on planes, I was a little worried a couple times that they would say the Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36″ was oversized and would charge me an arm and a leg, but it was all smooth sailing. For cars where space is a little tighter in smaller cars, you might run into challenges in the super small cars, but this was never a challenge for me in small size cars up to larger SUV’s.
Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36 Specs
- CAPACITY – 6200 cu in / 101 L
- WEIGHT – 8 lbs 14 oz / 4 kg
- DIMENSIONS – 15.5 x 36 x 12 in / 40 x 91 x 30 cm
FABRIC:
- 420D Helix™ Ripstop
- 420D Helix™ Oxford
- 1000D Helix™ Ballistic
Features That Count
When you’re lugging a suitcase around on your travels, having lots of handles on almost every side of a suitcase is a great thing. As seen in the pictures, you can see there a handle on top, bottom, each side, and front of the Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36″. So whatever angle you are approaching the suitcase by, you are sure to have a handle to grab on to.
Wheel Housing Going over a curb
Wheel Housing
Whether you’re rolling you’re suitcase over city curbs or rocks on the trail, the Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36 has you protected. This piece of luggage has wheel housing dreams are made of. Well, that might a little stretch, but the housing around the wheels is super protective which helps keep the wheels from getting damaged.
On a long journey, it’s nice to have a separate compartment to put your dirty clothes in. The compartment in the gear warrior is called the laundry chute, very fitting name. This compartment is great to throw stinky running shorts, shirts, etc in and keeps the smells contained.
While I personally didn’t use this feature, if you use the gear warrior while skiing/snowboarding or cycling, you can stash you helmet on the top. Keep in mind this is not intended while checking your bag.
Outside Storage
For those times when you want to reduce the size of your luggage, you are free to use the compression straps on the Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36. These also double to use stashing gear on the outside of the bag. I took advantage of these straps to store stinky running shoes.
Color Options & Style
Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36
I tested out the Cactus Green color Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36 and if you like loud, this is a great color. I am good with loud color bags and I did get a few comments on the color of the bag as I checked in at hotels. The downside of the cactus green color is that it gets dirty easily as it gets thrown all around on the airport luggage carousals. To be on the safe side, I would go with the blue or black colored gear warrior.
As with most Eagle Creek luggage pieces, the Gear Warrior 36 has a great sporty look to match the rest of your wardrobe.
Final Thoughts
The Eagle Creek Gear Warrior 36 is a large rolling bag. If you need a lot of space while traveling, this is a great option. For your typical 3-5 day trip, this might be a little too much bag. If you end up going out for a longer trip with additional gear, this is the PERFECT piece of luggage. For more information or to purchase, please visit www.eaglecreek.com or www.amazon.com/eaglecreek.
