The Best Sling Bag for Men Is a Smarter Way to Store Your Stuff

Oy, buddy—we can hear your pockets groaning through our screen. Do them a solid and toss your keys, phone, and SPF in one of these instead.
The best sling bag for men in 2024 according to GQ.
Collage by Emily Hanhan

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Scant few fellas land on the best sling bag for men by actively looking for it. Who, pray tell, doesn’t know a guy who crams all his knick-knacks, doohickeys, and thingamajigs into the overstuffed pockets of his pants, refusing, on principle, to port them around in a bag? Don’t be that guy. Instead, allow us to introduce the far more stylish way to haul your gear right now, an ergonomic alternative to the standard messenger that eschews the bulkiness of a backpack—and the flimsy-as-hell straps of a tote—in favor of sheer, unadulterated utility. We’re talking, of course, about the sling bag—and if you lend us your ear (and a spare shoulder), you will be, too.

For anyone old enough to remember the '90s (or young enough to inherit its trauma), sling bags, you might recall, were not always cool. In 2024, though, there’s a whole gamut of them to explore: designer slings, budget slings, teched-out slings, outdoorsy slings, slings so secure they could (probably, we didn’t test this) survive the Oklahoma Drill without budging an inch. So to free your pockets, we strapped in, got to trekking, and landed on the most excellent sling bag for men—plus 14 other superlative options.


The Best Sling Bags for Men, According to GQ


Best Sling Bag Overall: Carhartt Mono Sling Backpack

Carhartt

Mono Sling Backpack

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Adjustable padded strap
  • Water-resistant
  • Laptop-friendly
Cons
  • Large and in charge
  • Slightly less packable than our other picks

If you’re looking for an affordable sling bag that does a bit of everything—and comes equipped with enough storage to haul bulkier personal items—Carhartt’s is nigh-impossible to beat. For starters, it boasts a padded laptop pocket, which is always a nice perk, and the main compartment is spacious enough to hold a camera, a 6-pack, or a bunch of other potentially necessary items that wouldn’t fit in a more compact counterpart. It helps, of course, that its exterior is made from the type of tough, water-repellent textile the first name in workwear is famous for, and that said exterior features multiple easy-to-reach storage pockets to keep your gear at the ready. Oh, and the padded strap has a nifty quick-release function and a lil’ pocket for anything you need direct access to. Like we said: nigh-impossible to beat.

Best Trail-Ready Sling Bag: Patagonia Atom 8L Sling Bag

Patagonia

Atom 8L Sling Bag

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Padded straps and back
  • Pocket space aplenty
  • DWR water-resistant coating
Cons
  • Smaller than some of our other picks
  • Water-resistant doesn't mean waterproof

When you’re on the trail, “rummaging” shouldn’t be high on your list of designated activities—you want whatever you’ve lugging in to be easily accessible, reasonably protected, and, above all else, easy to carry. Patagonia’s Atom sling checks all those boxes with aplomb. It’s made from a tough, 100% recycled polyester that’s been treated with a water-repellent finish, comes outfitted with an ergonomic strap that distributes weight across the entire torso, and boasts pockets pretty much everywhere you could imagine putting a pocket—even on the exterior of said ergonomic strap. If you’re looking for a sling bag that likes to touch grass—or, heck, limestone—as much as you do, look no further.

Best Commuter Sling Bag: Gramicci Cordura Sling Bag

Gramicci

Cordura Sling Bag

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Padded straps
  • Laptop-friendly
  • Press-release sternum strap
Cons
  • Not waterproof
  • Limited outside pocket space

One of the sling bag’s primary selling points is how secure it’ll stay when you’re on the move—with a single strap, the right version can mimic the locked-in support of a backpack with double its carrying capacity. If you’ve got places to be, that’s huge—especially if you’re trying to maintain a low-profile. Of all the sling bags with that particular benefit, Gramicci’s option was our favorite: it comes equipped with enough space to haul a laptop and the padding to protect it, but its profile is slim enough to squeeze onto a crowded train or hide under an umbrella during a surprise drizzle. The pockets are easily accessible, and when things get especially chaotic, the press-release sternum strap locks the whole shebang in for good.

Best Designer Sling Bag: Loewe Puzzle Edge Small Leather Belt Bag

Loewe

Puzzle Edge Small Leather Belt Bag

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Unimpeachable pedigree
  • Handy outside pocket
  • Immediate cool-guy cred
Cons
  • We double-checked the price—it's still $2,000

Sometimes, you want your bag to be more than practical—you want it to be a flex in its own right. When that’s the case, you have two options: big logos or venerable designs, the type that don’t require a splashy luxury emblem to ID in a flash. The Loewe Puzzle Edge bag is the latter. Its distinct geometric shape is achieved using multiple monochromatic patches, providing both structure and pattern, without stealing the spotlight entirely from the rest of your outfit. (Which means you can wear it with pretty much everything, despite its eye-watering price tag.) Better yet, if you’re traveling, that unique construction is designed to collapse into itself, packing into a suitcase with plenty of room for the really important stuff: said outfits, obviously.

Best Pared-Down Sling Bag: Baggu Medium Nylon Crescent Bag

BAGGU

Medium Nylon Crescent Bag

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Super lightweight
  • Adjustable strap
  • Zip closure
  • Lots of colors
Cons
  • Only one compartment
  • Nothing in the way of padding
  • No structure

Sometimes, of course, you just need a bag that carries a bunch of stuff and looks halfway decent doing it—nothing more, nothing less. That’s where Baggu’s perfectly streamlined sling comes in. It’s crafted from a hardy recycled nylon, boasts an endlessly-useful adjustable crossbody strap, and zips all the way closed, making it a pretty unimpeachable tote alternative for lazy packers. What more, really, can you ask for?

Best Heirloom-Grade Sling Bag: Kapital Heavy Canvas Transit Snufkin Bag

Kapital

Heavy Canvas Transit Snufkin Bag

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Adjustable straps
  • Zipper-top
  • Easy, breezy styling
Cons
  • Linen is prone to stain
  • Little-to-no padding

If you’re wondering why you’d buy a linen sling bag, well, uh, fair enough—linen doesn’t exactly scream ‘BAG’, and your gear isn’t susceptible to heat stroke the same way your body is. Underestimate our favorite flaxy fabric at your own peril, though: you already know it’s ludicrously breezy, but it’s crazy strong and dries quickly, too. Which is why we were especially amped to see Kapital’s Snufkin bag—already an all-time riff on the silhouette—hit the shelves in a new-and-improved linen form, just in time for August. Aesthetics alone would warrant its inclusion on this list: the dye is subtly uneven, which lends it the look of a vintage grail fresh out of the box. The adjustable strap is nice, too, but the real star of the show is the massive storage capacity, which can be zipped, rolled, and/or affixed with leather straps depending on the context. Don’t let its rarified Japanese origin fool you, either: a piece like this only gets better with serious wear.


More Sling Bags We Love

Klättermusen Algir Organizer Bag

Klättermusen

Algir Organizer Bag

For those looking to keep things extra-lightweight without sacrificing Cool Features™, the Algir delivers. In regards to features, it’s loaded up with pockets, has an adjustable strap that combines both cords and webbing, a hidden passport pocket and a sneaky 5 liters of storage space, making this one of the more tastefully tactical options on the market. But there’s also zero bulk, which means it works great on its own or clipped to a larger bag when you’re traveling.

Osprey Daylite Water-Repellent Sling Backpack

Osprey

Daylite Water-Repellent Sling Backpack

Sling bags are kind of comfortable by default, but the Osprey Daylite is on another level, kind of like if a pool slide was a bag with a surprising amount of storage and a convenient external pocket. And as a little bonus, this one comes with a water-repellent DWR coating, allowing you to worry even less about whatever’s inside.

Master-Piece Circus Sling Bag

Master-Piece

Circus Sling Bag

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a sling bag more fully-loaded than the Circus. To kick things off, it’s got more pockets than a pool hall, and some are so undercover that you’ll even forget they exist. The sleek shape hugs your body for ultra-smooth crowd navigation and the padded back face makes sure that it stays comfortable the whole time. In other words, you’ll have to keep up with it, not the other way around.

Kavu Remix Rope Bag

Kavu

Remix Rope Bag

While some things should (probably) be left at the crag, others look awesome away from it—and it turns out that climbing rope is the latter. This sling bag from Kavu uses actual climbing rope for the strap, lashing four of them together to punctuate a highly-functional, super durable, utterly unique design, which also has a bevy of pockets and a sick side-release buckle.

Dries Van Noten Bombe Leather Sling Bag

Dries Van Noten

Bombe Leather Sling Bag

A somewhat subtle, understated design, punctuated by some cheeky flourishes—see: knotted zipper pull to match the knotted ends of the strap—the Bombe Bag looks absolutely stunning on day one and even better years down the road, once it’s logged some serious miles. The secret is in its simplicity: the leather is the star of the show, down to the straps and the pulls, with the only variance coming in the form of a handsome silvertone loop where the strap attaches.

Arc’teryx Granville Crossbody Bag

Arc'teryx

Granville Crossbody Bag

The Granville Bag might look fairly straightforward, but like all things Arc’, it’s anything but. The shell is made from a waterproof nylon ripstop and it also has taped seams and a water-repellent finish, just to really hammer home the point. The back panel has a super-cushy, super-breathable pad for two separate orders of comfort, the internal pocket has a key clip and the detachable strap allows for three different ways to wear it, if you feel so inclined.

Porter-Yoshida & Co. POTR Ride Webbing-Trimmed Shell Belt Bag

Porter-Yoshida & Co.

POTR Ride Webbing-Trimmed Shell Belt Bag

For those unfamiliar, Porter-Yoshida makes some mf bags. Some of the most luxurious, most functional, most tricked out bags anywhere—if a detail might be useful, it’s included; if there’s a fabric upgrade available, they hit that button. Their line is deeper than a 40L tote, but the POTR Belt Bag just might be the best. It’s made with a waterproof shell, some CORDURA® Ballistic nylon to reinforce the bottom, all sorts of pockets and D-rings on the outside to clip things to, if that’s your thing. If you felt like it, you could use this one heavily for a decade.

Lemaire Medium Soft Croissant Bag

Lemaire

Medium Soft Croissant Bag

If you’ve ever looked at a croissant and thought, “If you added a strap and hollowed out the middle, this would make a great bag…” 1) interesting thought, and 2) you were right. In fact, it’s one of the most recognizable bags in a Lemaire line full of them, and also one of the best. The croissant-mimicking construction allows for pliability while also providing a touch of structure to the supple leather, the canvas lining protects that leather, there’s a pocket because everyone loves a pocket and the knotted detail at the strap is almost as iconic as the bag itself. It’s very expensive, but it’s also very nice.

Engineered Garments x DSPTCH Unit Vertical Pouch

Engineered Garments

x DSPTCH Unit Vertical Pouch

Ok, we’ll level with you: we have no idea if this qualifies as a sling bag, but we’re also not super concerned about its qualifications considering the utility it provides. Designed to fit underneath your jacket without making you look like the Michelin Man, this thing is made with apocalypse-proof Dynema and has a three-point strap-system that’s locked down with a Fidlock V-Buckle. TLDR; a very sneaky bag.


What to look for in a great sling bag

Sling bags come in a whole bunch of shapes, sizes, materials, and capabilities, so we set out to find bags across that spectrum. While it makes little sense to compare a sling bag designed for the outdoors to one made from supple leather—different strokes for different folks—bags are also bags, so we wanted to ensure that transitive standards were established, focusing primarily quality of materials and construction, carrying capabilities, and how good it performs the job it was made to do. With that in mind, here are a few important things to look out for:

Intended function. What are you primarily going to be using the bag for? Materials, design features and hardware choices all dictate what the bag was made to do, aside from carry stuff, which many can do. Because bags are made to do different things, we didn’t make it about the range of function, but rather how well they do what they promise to do. In other words, we didn’t go to the crag with a fancy leather bag to test out its dexterity in the wilderness, because that’s not what a fancy leather bag is meant to do. Instead we graded it on how well it did fancy leather bag things, and the same goes for those on the other end of the spectrum—if using it on a hike or a commute and need it to be tough, a synthetic would be best suited for the task.

Size. That “L” you see stands for liters, which is the standard metric for carrying capacity. The more liters that could theoretically fit in your bag—don’t dump liquid inside, there’s no need to check math—the more you can haul. Size denotations like Small/Medium/Large will give you an idea of what the model looks like relative to other models, but it won’t give you a great understanding of how much you could actually fit in your new bag. For the sake of versatility, we leaned a bit more on those in the middle—bags need to carry stuff, as we noted earlier.

Quality of Construction/Materials. Anyone who’s had a bag of any kind break on them can attest to the special brand of betrayal you feel, a feeling that’s multiplied when it’s a bag of the non-disposable variety. In other words, bags need to hold up and the way they do is with top-tier materials and rock-solid construction. Again, the rubric isn’t going to look the same for bags across the use-case spectrum, but the standards are for every bag we reviewed. Things like taped seams, reinforced stress-points, caliber of hardware and fabric selection are all things to consider, and were during our process.

What’s the difference between a sling bag, a messenger bag, and a shoulder bag?

There are a few. Technically, messenger bags and sling bags are both shoulder bags, but shoulder bags aren’t necessarily either. If this is confusing, we sympathize with the sentiment, but know that the primary difference between a sling bag and a messenger bag is that the strap of a sling bag is engineered to lay diagonally across the shoulders and chest, where as a messenger bag is more of a dealer’s choice. (A shoulder bag is a larger category, and a crossbody bag is a daintier proposition, generally.)

So why go with a sling bag at all?

Due to the strap position and the prevalent oblong shape, you get the weight distribution of a backpack with one less strap, which is nice, and that same design makes it easy to lock into place and also swing around when on the move. They also can be worn over a single shoulder, which offers some versatility, and because there tends to be a lot of surface area, it’s a pocket-amenable design.