Traveling Across Australia with Horizn Studios Model M Cabin Bag

In an era of increasingly savvy travel, the search for the best carry-on bag has become something of an Indiana Jones-style Holy Grail search. We’re travelling lighter, smarter, and faster, and the kit we lug on board with us has to keep up with every new demand. Amidst the slew of product choices on the market today, each with their own bells and smart-tech whistles, sorting out the wheat from the chaff has never been a harder call – or more essential.

Introducing Berlin-based Horizn Studios. These cats have been “disrupting the travel and tech worlds” since 2015 with their suite of sleek carry gear tailored for modern nomads. Horizn does carry-ons, checked-ins, backpacks and totes, but it’s their cabin luggage Model M that caught our eye from the outset.

This, one of their most popular ‘smart’ luggage items, is a truly international affair: top-flight wheels constructed in Japan, veg-tanned Varchetta leather from Italy, high-end nylon from Taiwan, and aerospace-grade polycarbonate hardshell born in local Deutschland.

Such an international bag deserves an appropriately international test: with Horizn’s blessing, we carted the Model M all the way to the other side of the world for one of the most exhaustive (and literal) international road tests in Carryology history: 11 days, 4 states, 5000km across the vast Australian bush, charting Adelaide to Anna Bay, Sunshine Coast to the Sapphire Coast, all the way yonder to Melbourne before a return leg to Adelaide. Bookending all that: eight international flight legs from Berlin to Australia and back, 72 hours of transit with layovers at Heathrow, Changi and Mascot.

How would this stealthy, sweet-looking Model M hold up in the rough and raw of the Australian antipodes (to say nothing of the security gauntlet of five international airports)?

It not only survived the mission – it owned it in style.

The Road

On a chilly Autumn morning in Adelaide, we hurled the Model M in with a load of improvised camping kit in a bush-ready 2007 Toyota Hilux, complete with rear modified aluminium tray for rough, ready and unexpectedly deluxe camping. To prevent unwanted nocturnal blood loss, a mozzie net fixed to the rear of the tray would save our asses in our open air boudoir, while giving optimal gaze to heavens above and the glow of the low-hanging moon.

We should, of course, preface all this with the admission that few of you will probably ever hurl a bag of this sort into a utility vehicle and belt around the countryside in it. The purpose of this road trip was to broadly test the Model M’s resilience in unfamiliar settings.

For those who’ve never driven through the Australian outback, it’s difficult to convey the enormity of what you’re in for. The joint is vast. Reports of tourists attempting to tackle a lazy ‘day trip’ from Noosa to Cairns, for example – an 18-hour drive (or the equivalent of Berlin to Moscow) – are common. In some very intrepid parts, you can drive for days without seeing as much as a petrol bowser.

Initially, we considered taking the Barrier Highway through old frontier town Broken Hill, a place made famous by George Miller’s iconic film Mad Max. Given that we weren’t in the possession of a Ford V8 Interceptor (and not wanting to tempt fate with a heightened chance of kangaroo collision) we opted for a slightly less intrepid Murray River route via Loxton, Mildura, the desolate Hay Plains, the Blue Mountains in Sydney’s western hinterland, and the Pacific Coastal route.

It was an epic ride from state to state. After a lengthy haul each day, we’d set up camp in a caravan park or nature reserve and prepare dinner on gas burners over wine and the glow of fire. Despite the ever-present threat of dust, mud and general road damage – either on the road or the campground – the Model M proved a versatile and formidable carry companion. Mad Max or not, this ‘black on black’ was totally up for the outback challenge.

“Few of you will probably ever hurl a bag of this sort into a utility vehicle and belt around the countryside in it. The purpose of this road trip was to broadly test the Model M’s resilience in unfamiliar settings.”

Firstly, the bag’s polycarbonate shell proved tough as guts, absorbing the pressure of a full carload without hassle. A quick ‘baby wipe’ to its exterior surface allowed us to effortlessly maintain its sleek look on the go. As those who’ve camped before understand, having an organised inventory on the road is paramount to a smooth ride; the benefit of an inbuilt laundry bag in the Model M meant we were always clean, organised and good to go hygiene-wise.

One of the bag’s most novel virtues was discovered when we passed through popular coastal surf town Byron Bay. It was our luck that a deluge of tropical magnitude greeted us as we drove in, which persisted violently all night as we sheltered under our heavily tarpaulined, and very loud, Hilux boudoir. When the town’s power went out, the Model M’s lithium ion battery proved a godsend, giving extra charge to our electronic lives.

However, the day in, day out appeal of this bag was found in its construction. The shell interior, meanwhile, was all class: a simplified setup, each side with its own main mesh compartments. The pockets and compartments are beyond smart: they’re effortlessly functional, and just as stylish. A front duel-zip pocket holds three zip pockets for cords and sundry items, with two elastic mesh and nylon dividers for keeping a 15-inch laptop and iPad – like us in the tray bed – snug as a bug in a rug. The pocket’s nylon V-fold, meanwhile, is a very neat touch, which also made for seamless transitions at the many airport customs gates to and from the Australian stint.

The Airport Legs

Given that few of us will ever throw this bad boy in the back of a ute and belt through the Australian bush with it, it’s probably a good idea to detail the Model M’s performance in more familiar settings, i.e. through the many airport transits we encountered to and from Oz (eight flight legs all up).

Negotiating customs gates, whether snaking with anxious co-travellers or not, is typically an arduous task, and having a bag that can smooth out that process ought to be considered an ally. The Model M proved a solid companion in this setting, the front compartment easily accessible for reaching toiletries and laptop at each security inspection, and just as effortless to put away again.

“The pockets and compartments are beyond smart: they’re effortlessly functional, and just as stylish.”

Handle-wise, the top and side rubber grips did the trick, the adjustable pull-out handle remained sturdy and strong throughout each trip, and the TSA-approved lock enhanced peace of mind (we checked the bag a couple of times, but used it as carry-on otherwise).

This slender lithium ion battery that saved us in Byron Bay, meanwhile, was cabin-approved for all airlines, and though nestled neatly at the base of the pull handle, was easily removed with the click of a button when we needed to check it.

Given its L40 x H55 x W20 cm dimensions, we had little trouble getting this thing on board. Nicely lightweight at 3.4kg, we were also able to lug more stuff without compromising our carry-on allowance (though no one checked the weight anyway).

“The Model M’s lithium ion battery proved a godsend, giving extra charge to our electronic lives.”

Lastly, the bread and butter of any stroller concerns its wheels. The Japanese-made 360 spinners on the Model M are some of the smoothest we’ve had the pleasure of guiding along airport linoleum. They held up well on bitumen, weren’t bad on bush dirt and shrapnel, and owned the lengthy wanders through Heathrow, Changi, Mascot and Adelaide in style. Click after click, campsite after campsite – and airline gate after airline gate – the Model M proved a friend indeed.

The Good

Easy to wipe clean when it gets dirty, maintaining its sleek appearance

Comes with laundry bag so you can keep your stuff separate, and do the laundry easily on the road

Lithium battery a godsend in hairy / powerless moments

Excellent ergonomic design

Simplicity and effortless functionality

30-year limited warranty

100-day risk-free trial

Good with international flight regulations

The Not So Good

Has a weight limit. Not great when overpacked (the pull-out handle is compromised if so)

Verdict

Whether pulsing through the Australian outback, or simply moving from city to city, the Model M is more than a smart choice. It does everything it says it will: design-wise, tech-wise, functionality-wise, and at 299 Euros direct to you, price-wise too. If black’s not your bag, it also comes in Night Blue, Dark Olive, Quartz Grey, Marsala, Sand and Marine Green.

With the outreach towns of rural New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia in our memory banks – the drovers pushing cattle herds past barrelling tankers, kangaroos bouncing over fence lines, and bush sunsets that made our camera lenses weep – we flew back to Berlin with a new love of the endless, previously unknown, horizons of our old homeland.

5000 road kilometres later, 30,000 via air, the Horizn Studios Model M had barely a scratch on it.

Journey Maps

https://goo.gl/maps/5B6jsHrF2912