Kapten & Son Backpacks, Decoded City by City
Kapten & Son names its backpacks after cities, and once you own the code, the whole range reads at a glance: Bergen is the bestseller built for school and office, Lisbon is the travel line, Helsinki the city classic, and the small names, Fyn, Tromso, Oslo, Vallen, cover the days you carry less. The Cologne-based brand designs everything in Germany around one consistent recipe: vegan technical fabrics, recycled PET, water-repellent shells, an anti-theft pocket against your back and a trolley sleeve for travel days. What the brand's own site never does is explain the cities side by side. That is this page's job.
We stock the full Kapten & Son backpack range, from 6 to 50 litres. If you want the same minimalism with natural fibre and patina instead of tech fabric, our vintage canvas backpacks are the counter-argument; if your first filter is certifications rather than styling, the sustainable backpacks shelf sorts this brand against its rivals.
Which City Fits Your Days?
Five families do the heavy lifting. Pick by the shape of your week, then let the litres follow.
Bergen: the bestseller for school and office
Bergen is the silhouette that made the brand, and the family now spans a compact and a full-size. The Bergen Pro carries a padded 15-inch sleeve plus a fleece-lined tablet pocket, slip pockets and the hidden anti-theft compartment; the smaller Bergen (11 L) keeps a 13-inch sleeve in a format the sheet says slides under an airplane seat. The trade-off of the buckled look: it opens less wide than a clamshell, which is the price of the face everyone recognises.
Lisbon: the travel professional
The Lisbon Pro is the range's do-everything traveller: a roll-top that expands from 26 to 34 litres around a padded 16-inch sleeve, with full zip-back access that opens like a suitcase. Compact, the sheet rates it for under-seat carry; unrolled, it is overhead-bin territory. Beside it, the Lisbon Duffle Medium (50 L) converts between duffel and backpack in ripstop recycled PET with a TPU coating, the biggest bag Kapten & Son makes, and the Small (33 L) does the same trick for two-day trips.
Helsinki: the city classic, now with a bike variant
The Helsinki is the quiet one: 15-inch sleeve, four inner pockets, the shape that disappears into any office. The Helsinki Pro (23 L) adds five lined pockets and ships with a rain cover in the box. The interesting outlier is the Helsinki Pro Bike (23 L), the only pack here that mounts directly on a bike rack: full back opening, reflective details, and a padded compartment sized 43 x 29 cm for 15.6-inch laptops and 16-inch MacBooks. For daily cycling it competes with anything in our commuter backpacks selection, and we say that as the shop that stocks its rivals.
The compacts: Fyn, Tromso, Oslo, Vallen, Aalborg
Below 20 litres the range splits by scenario. The Fyn (13 L) fits a 14-inch MacBook and stays office-clean; the Tromso (9 L) hides a parent trick, buggy-strap loops and a 14-inch sleeve in a featherlight shell; the Oslo (15 L) takes a 15-inch machine with fleece-lined sleeves; the Vallen (6 L) is the tablet-and-essentials minimum at 0.68 kg; and the Aalborg (18 L) splits the difference with a 15-inch sleeve for students. One family, five ways to carry less.
Bali, Lund and Banff: cabin bags and roll-tops
The Bali Pro (25 L) is the flight specialist: a fold-down front panel that packs like a small suitcase and two laptop compartments covering 15.6-inch laptops and 16-inch MacBooks. The Lund Pro rolls from 21 to 26 litres around a 16-inch sleeve, magnets and carabiner doing the closing, and the Banff stretches 28 to 35 litres with an integrated rain cover and a fold-out luggage sleeve, the closest thing here to a one-bag travel pack.
The decision rule: Bergen if the bag must look like the brand, Helsinki if it must disappear, Lisbon or Bali if it must fly, a compact if your laptop is the heaviest thing you own. Buy for the normal Tuesday; the roll-tops exist for the exceptional one.
Vegan Fabrics, Recycled PET, and What They Withstand
The recipe barely changes across the range, which is a compliment: outer shells in vegan technical fabric, most linings and many shells in recycled PET, water-repellent finishes as standard. Water-repellent means commuter rain and splashes rather than immersion, and the sheets say so plainly; where the brand expects worse weather, it includes the answer in the box, a rain cover with the Helsinki Pro and Banff. Zips, padded backs and adjustable straps run through the whole catalogue, and nearly every model repeats the two signatures worth having: the anti-theft pocket flat against your spine, and the trolley sleeve that turns any of them into the top half of a travel set.
From 6 to 50 Litres
Six to 13 litres is the essentials layer: Vallen, Tromso, Fyn, a machine and not much else. Fifteen to 18, Oslo and Aalborg, carries a full study day. Twenty-three to 26 is the commuter band where Helsinki Pro, Bali Pro and Lund Pro live, laptop plus gym kit plus lunch. Twenty-eight to 35 covers the weekend, Bali and Banff, and the Lisbon line runs it through 34 expandable litres to the 50-litre Duffle Medium, which is proper trip territory. The grid above filters by size; most people should buy one band smaller than their instinct.
Buying Kapten & Son at Eiken
Kapten & Son backs its bags with a 24-month warranty against manufacturing and material defects, and Eiken doubles the paperwork with a 2-year warranty of its own on seams, straps and zips, claims handled by us. You get 30 days to return or exchange, orders ship from France, and our reviews sit unedited on Trustpilot and our reviews page, alongside more than 25,000 orders shipped. Between the two warranties, a Kapten & Son bought here is covered from either direction.
FAQ
Are Kapten & Son backpacks vegan?
Yes, across the range: the outer shells use vegan technical fabric and the linings, often the shells too, are recycled PET, with no animal-derived materials listed on any sheet we stock. The look reads premium leather-adjacent from a distance, which is rather the point; the material story underneath is synthetic and recycled.
Which Kapten & Son backpack fits which laptop?
Verified on the sheets: 16-inch machines fit the Lisbon Pro, Lund Pro and Lisbon Duffles, plus the Helsinki Pro Bike and Bali Pro up to 16-inch MacBooks. The Bergen Pro, Helsinki, Helsinki Pro, Oslo and Aalborg carry 15-inch sleeves; the Fyn and Tromso take 14-inch; the Bergen 11L takes 13-inch; the Vallen is tablet-sized.
Bergen or Helsinki: which one should I choose?
Bergen if you want the brand's signature look, buckles and all, with a tablet pocket beside the 15-inch sleeve. Helsinki if you want the same organisation in a quieter shape that vanishes into offices, and the Pro version adds a rain cover. Function overlaps heavily; the honest difference is how much you want the bag recognised.
Is there a Kapten & Son backpack for cycling?
One, and it is specific: the Helsinki Pro Bike (23 L) mounts on a bike rack, opens fully from the back panel, carries reflective details and takes 15.6-inch laptops or a 16-inch MacBook in a 43 x 29 cm compartment. The other models ride on shoulders only. For rolltop-on-back cycling alternatives, our commuter backpacks page compares brands.
Can I take a Kapten & Son backpack as cabin luggage?
The sheets flag the Bali Pro (25 L) as cabin-friendly, the Bergen 11L and the compact Lisbon Pro as under-seat formats, and most models carry a trolley sleeve for the rolling half of the journey. Airlines set their own limits, so check your carrier's dimensions against the size guide on each product page before you fly.
What warranty do Kapten & Son backpacks come with?
Kapten & Son covers manufacturing and material defects for 24 months. Eiken adds its own 2-year warranty on seams, straps and zips, with the claim handled by us rather than a helpdesk abroad, and you have 30 days to return or exchange a bag that does not fit your life.
Are these backpacks waterproof?
Water-repellent rather than waterproof: the vegan tech shells shed commuter rain and splashes, and the sheets are explicit that they are not submersible. Where weather is part of the brief, the brand includes a rain cover in the box, on the Helsinki Pro and the Banff, which is the honest way to make a city bag storm-ready.
The rest of the range
The rest of the brand lives on two shelves: the Kapten & Son hub with every bag in one place, and the shoulder bags and crossbody line for days that need less. To see how these packs hold up against other brands, our best laptop backpacks and best tech backpacks guides rank the field machine-first, and the commuter backpacks collection linked above puts Kapten & Son next to eight rivals on the same platform, which is where a bestseller either earns the name or does not.