The Premium Travel Backpack Brand You'd Be Thrilled To Find At Thrift Stores

Thrift stores can be hit or miss, but when you score a good deal, it's like finding buried treasure. Whether it's a vintage dress, a hard-to-find vinyl, or the perfect lamp, you can add saving money to the joy of the search. It's also a great place to find expensive items secondhand, and that includes travel gear. If you're someone who frequently splurges on airport lounges with high-end offerings or books top-tier hotels without thinking twice, you may not worry about such things. However, if you love luxury but are on a budget, finding a premium Tumi backpack at a thrift or secondhand store is a win to celebrate. 

Tumi is a high-end luggage brand, beloved by business travelers for style and quality. However, when we say high-end, we mean it. Tumi backpacks on the company website generally retail for between $400 and $2,195 at the time of this writing, with a couple of exceptions (and those will still set you back about $200). However, you can sometimes find Tumi items in discount and thrift stores for a lower price — and if you do, grab them while you can.

Tumi puts its items through several durability tests and uses ballistic nylon in their construction. The brand also does repairs and monograms. The bags are reliable, and if you've ever walked past a Tumi store in an airport and dreamed of owning one, you're not alone. If you know what you're looking for, however, you might get lucky at a thrift store. In fact, a poster on Reddit's r/ThriftStoreHauls says they found a Tumi bag at a thrift store for $4.99, while a commenter on the post says they scored a Tumi briefcase at Goodwill for $1. In yet another thread in the same subreddit, a poster says they purchased a Tumi bag for $7. While these are truly lucky finds, you never know what you might discover in your local thrift shop.

However, if you don't have time to search through thrift stores, you can sometimes find Tumi items at a lower price elsewhere. There's a sale page on the company website, and some stores, like Nordstrom, sometimes have Tumi backpacks on sale and in clearance. You may even find Tumi items on eBay. Finally, there is one thing to keep in mind, whether you have a Tumi backpack or one from a less-expensive brand: Wearing a backpack is a common clothing choice that may mark you as a tourist in Europe. You might want to try a crossbody bag instead. (Tumi makes those, too.)