Yeti started out with nothing but some nigh-indestructible coolers but has since expanded to all manner of backpacks, bags, pouches, and more. The Yeti Crossroads is the brand’s attempt to make an ultra-durable yet stylish backpack that can do just about anything, just about anywhere.
This Yeti Crossroads review will help you separate the hype from the truth and make it easier to decide if the Crossroads is worth its premium price.
Yeti Crossroads Commuter BackpackQuick Overview
The Yeti Crossroads is a durable and adaptable mid-sized backpack that combines the company’s penchant for overengineering with sleek design. It offers excellent value as a commuter bag, travel bag, and even as an adventure pack. It’s built to last and includes some of the most in-demand features.
Functionality
9.8/10
Style
9.2/10
Dependability
10/10
Value
8.8/10
What We Like
Durable construction = reliable and long-lasting
Adaptable design allows you to use it just as easily as a commuter bag as you would a travel/adventure bag
Solid value for your money
What We Don’t Like
Internal water bottle pockets
Straps and back could use more ventilation
Would like a detachable waist strap
What is the Yeti Crossroads?
The Yeti Crossroads are a line of highly durable and adaptable backpacks from the makers of the bombproof Yeti Coolers. They’re an evolution of Yeti’s original Tocayo backpack that incorporates the company’s commitment to making the most rugged and dependable products with everything they learned about backpack design. There are three size options:
Additionally, the Crossroads come in multiple colors, so make sure to checkout their Amazon page.
The Crossroads offer a reliable “jack-of-all-trades” backpack option for those who want a single bag that works just as well as a daily commuter as it does as a travel or adventure bag. The Crossroads combines excellent build quality with in-demand features and a few Yeti quirks to create a solid multi-role backpack for long-term use.
Key features
- 700D TuffSkin Nylon body with DWR coating
- PU coated bottom keeps your stuff dry even if you accidentally set it on wet ground
- 180-degree main pocket offers roomy storage for day-to-day goods, gear, or packing cubes
- Dual modular compression straps across front of the bag make it easy to keep your pack as streamlined as possible
Specifications
- Capacity: Multiple sizes, 22L, 27L, and 35L
- Dimensions: 19.8” × 12” × 8” | 50.3 cm x 30.5 cm x 20.3 cm
- Weight: 3.6 lbs. | 1.63 kg
- Laptop Sleeve: Yes
Yeti Crossroads Design and Style
Yeti style tends to emphasize its products’ durability and functional excellence. The Crossroads is no different, with its basic style best described as “functional chic.” It’s got readily apparent straps crisscrossing the body, a blocky minimalist shape, and visibly overengineered features in the stitches, zippers, and handles.
Yeti offers the Crossroads in five different colors, starting with Yeti traditional alpine brown and including black, navy, harvest red, and our personal favorite Nordic purple. The black is also incredibly sharp, with a stealth aesthetic that will appeal to those looking for the most professional look with a Yeti bag or folks who appreciate a blacked-out aesthetic.
Yeti Crossroads Features
We considered the most critical features of a successful backpack while preparing for our Yeti Crossroads review. Those included capacity, organization and pockets, comfort and wearability, and adaptability.
Capacity
The Yeti Crossroads comes in three different sizes depending on your needs. We focused on the 27L for our review as it’s the most versatile, but you can also pick up the Crossroads in a 22L or 35L version.
The 27L can best be seen as a jack-of-all-trades kind of bag. It’s compact enough for use daily, particularly with the ability to compress it down to fit what you’ve got inside, but still roomy enough for longer adventures, road trips, or travel up to a week for one-baggers. The 22L is best suited for day-to-day commuting or weekend trips, while the 35L is excellent as a longer-duration travel bag.
Organization and pockets
The Yeti Crossroads doesn’t have as many organizational features as other travel and commuting bags we’ve reviewed but does offer a good mix of pockets. It has two main compartments, a top zip laptop compartment and a 180-degree main compartment that opens broadly but doesn’t fully clamshell.
Within the laptop compartment, there’s a security zip pocket where you can keep things like extra cash or your passport, as well as a nicely structured laptop sleeve. The main compartment is generally roomy save for the two Rambler water bottle pockets on either side.
These pockets are one of the few areas of the Crossroads where we fundamentally disagree with Yeti’s choices. They used dual internal pockets in the main compartment rather than outside mesh pockets to hold water bottles.
The goal was clearly to make the bag more streamlined overall, but the result draws away from the total volume in the main compartment and requires you to put your water bottles inside your backpack, thereby exposing anything inside to leaks.
Several small mesh and pouch-style zippered pockets along the back of the main compartment also work well for holding things like chargers, small electronics, etc. One thing we absolutely loved about the main pocket was the two-way zippers. You can open the compartment from the top as with a regular backpack or unzip it from the bottom to easily access items at the bottom of the bag.
Built with strength in its simplicity, this bag helps you stay organized and dialed on the go. A pack with space for everything, but still streamlined to navigate a commute easily. Made from 700D, water and abrasion-resistant TuffSkin Nylon. Large main compartment opens wide for easy loading and unloading. Secure your pack to the top of your roller with the luggage pass-thru sleeve.
Comfort and wearability
Yeti took a minimalist approach to padding, ergonomics, and general strap design with the Crossroads. The contoured shoulder straps are made from dense yet reasonably comfortable EVA foam, as is the single-piece backplate. There’s a sternum strap but no waist strap, but that’s an understandable choice for a 27L backpack.
At the start of our Yeti Crossroads review, we were initially concerned by the relative lack of padding on the straps and backplate, but after wearing the Crossroads for several days of testing under different load conditions, we think Yeti did a good job overall. We would have liked more thought put into ventilation or some air grooves on the back, but it’s comfortable enough for all-day wear even when fully loaded.
One thing we loved was the careful thought put into handle placement. Yeti put four rock-solid handles on the Crossroads, one on top, one on the bottom front, and one on either side, allowing you to carry the pack several ways without awkwardly holding the shoulder straps or sternum strap.
They also integrated a suitcase/luggage pass-through in the backplate, allowing you to easily slip the Crossroad onto a roller bag for more comfortable travel. Honestly, this is one of our favorite features, turning it into a piece of luggage and making it a suitable travel backpack.
Adaptability
One place the Yeti Crossroads backpack gets top marks is in adaptability. The bag was built for rough-and-tumble use across a broad range of situations and circumstances. We’ll dig deeper into just how durable it is below, but suffice it to say that you’ll feel just as comfortable taking your YETI Crossroads Backpack on a hiking trip as you would into the office. It’s even a unique piece of motorcycle gear.
The roomy main compartment and strategically placed small pockets allow you to quickly adjust your bag from a commuter posture to travel, adventure, or recreation. The dual compression straps built into the sides make it easy to expand or contract the total space as needed and help you maintain a sleek slimline look no matter your load.
We wish it had an exterior water bottle pocket, but we can understand from a style and design perspective why Yeti chose not to include one. If you’re an outdoor enthusiast who needs an exterior water bottle pocket, you should probably opt for a traditional backpack.
Yeti Crossroads Durability
Yeti is famous for overengineering its products and building them out of durable materials. Yeti coolers are basically bomb-proof, and the Crossroads line of durable backpacks follows that path.
The bag’s exterior is made from TuffSkin Nylon, a motorcycle bag inspired 700D nylon fabric that’s highly abrasion-, tear-, and water-resistant. During our Yeti Crossroads review, we dragged our Crossroads over concrete, dropped it on wet asphalt, and took it everywhere from the subway at rush hour to the backcountry at sunset, with zero damage.
Shockingly, there wasn’t even much in the way of pilling or marks on the exterior, with even the dust and muck from the road easily coming off with a damp soapy rag. One extra feature in the Crossroad’s design that we loved was the PU coating on the bottom of the bag which makes it a great piece of outdoor gear.
We’ve had way too many experiences with backpacks of accidentally setting it down in a puddle or rainy tarmac and soaking through to our stuff. That’s not something you have to worry about with the Crossroads.
Yeti went with high-quality YKK zippers and double-stitched all closures, handles, and other pressure points. Overall, we had no concerns about the durability or longevity of the Yeti Crossroads.
Warranty
Yeti offers a three-year warranty on the Crossroads series of backpacks. It’s pretty standard in coverage, protecting against any defect in workmanship and materials for the three-year period. They have some pretty specific requirements to get a Yeti warranty claim approved though, so make sure to hold onto things like proof of purchase if you want the option of using the warranty.
Who is the Yeti Crossroads For?
The Yeti Crossroads isn’t your typical business travel bag. It lacks many internal organizational features business travelers desire, going instead for adaptability and resilience through extra-sturdy construction and a near-totally unobstructed main compartment.
After our Yeti Crossroads review, we think this bag is best suited for use as a multi-role backpack that can carry your day-to-day goods in their own separate organizational systems (who doesn’t love a good EDC pouch?) and can seamlessly translate to a robust and water-resistant travel/adventure bag. The padded laptop sleeve keeps your essential electronics separate and secure, while the roomy main compartment allows you to fit in packing cubes, a dopp kit, gear pouches, and anything else you need for travel or daily adventures.
The Yeti Crossroads is a highly durable and seriously adaptable backpack that offers years of service with basic care. It combines the durability of heavy-duty tactical focus bags with the subdued style and packing focus of popular commuter and travel bags. If you’re looking for one backpack you can use on your daily commute, to travel, and on serious adventures, the Yeti Crossroads is a strong option.
Is the Yeti Crossroads Worth It?
Yeti is a brand famous for making extremely durable products that offer excellent performance, but that does so at the expense of, well, expense. The Yeti Crossroads is no exception, coming in at a price comparable to high-end travel bags from well-regarded brands like Aer or Tom Bihn.
The Crossroads justifies its high price with rock-solid construction and exceptional adaptability. Too many premium backpacks we review are highly specialized for one task or another, such as commuting bags with a million little pockets or travel backs with built-in organizational areas.
The Yeti Crossroads offers a highly durable and adaptable backpack that works well across a range of roles. It’s expensive, sure, but the combination of rugged, stylish construction, significant storage capacity, simple internal organization, and multiple uses it allows means you get a lot for your money.
Yeti Crossroads Alternatives
The commuter, travel, and adventure backpack segment is crowded, to say the least. The Yeti Crossroads is a fine backpack, but there are plenty of alternatives if your needs differ from the style or intended role(s) the Crossroads fulfill. Like all our reviews, like to offer some other options, and this Yeti Crossroads review is no exception.
Peak Design Travel Line 30L
The Peak Design Travel Line is a 30L travel specific backpack that offers a compelling range of features to rival the Yeti Crossroads in a sleek and stylish package. It isn’t quite as durably constructed as the Crossroads, but is more comfortable to wear for longer periods and provides some beneficial organizational design touches.
Functionally, the Travel Line fulfills all the commuter and travel roles that the Crossroads does, and looks sharp while doing it. The only downside is that it isn’t as rugged for hiking or adventure.
If you’re primarily looking for a sleek and highly-effective travel and commuter bag in the Yeti Crossroads’ price point, the Peak Design Travel Line 30L is an excellent alternative.
Osprey Porter 30
Osprey is a hiking and outdoor brand that nonetheless makes some of the best and best value travel and commuter bags available. The Osprey Porter is a 30L bag that combines excellent ergonomics with adaptability that rivals that of the Yeti Crossroads.
It has a similar streamlined design and offers dual compression straps across the bag in much the same way the Crossroads does. The capacity and organizational touches work exceptionally well for travel, but the U-zip system for the primary pocket is a bit much for day-to-day use.
Coming in at well under the price of the Yeti Crossroads, the Osprey Porter 30 is a good alternative if you’re looking for an adventure and travel bag.
Yeti Crossroads Review Final Thoughts
The Yeti Crossroads is a durable and adaptable mid-sized backpack that combines the company’s penchant for impressive overengineering with sleek design choices. The Crossroads offers excellent value as a commuter bag, travel bag, and even as an adventure pack. It’s built to last and includes some of the most in-demand features for a backpack of its size.
If you’re looking for a dependable and adaptable pack that you can use for nearly every part of your EDC, the Yeti Crossroads is an excellent choice.
Thank you for reading our Yeti Crossroads review! Still looking for a good bag? Check out our reviews of the Brevite Backpack, the Nomatic backpack, and the Mystery Ranch Rip Ruck 24.
Built with strength in its simplicity, this bag helps you stay organized and dialed on the go. A pack with space for everything, but still streamlined to navigate a commute easily. Made from 700D, water and abrasion-resistant TuffSkin Nylon. Large main compartment opens wide for easy loading and unloading. Secure your pack to the top of your roller with the luggage pass-thru sleeve.
