Add a tote to your wardrobe if you need a fashionable way to cram all of your supplies into a bag for work, the gym, or the beach and want to be able to grab them easily. Whether you get one tote bag or two, a tote is an accessory that should make you feel prepared, no matter where you are. With the variety of materials and styles available, there may not be a single best tote for everybody, but we did find a range of wonderful ones.
If your greatest wish is for a simple but good-looking, soft and unstructured, versatile canvas bag that lets you carry it multiple ways and will last for years, we recommend the Baggu Duck Bag.
Why it’s great:
It’s hard to pin the Baggu Duck Bag’s excellence on a single feature, but that’s where its genius lies: Its practical simplicity makes it a more universal choice than any other tote bag we tested. Almost the entire Wirecutter staff has used the Duck Bag before, and during our testing we received a lot of positive feedback about its style.
The Duck Bag is 11 inches wide by nearly 16 inches tall, and its flexible seams mean it can accommodate a large volume of contents. “I can stick my whole yoga mat in there,” one tester told us. And its shoulder strap extends to 40 inches, double the strap length of most totes we tested. You can adjust it to use the bag over your shoulder or carry it on your back, or you can use the short handles to carry it like a briefcase.
“It’s a good, unisex tote bag,” said Wirecutter's Sarah Kobos during testing. Overall, the Duck Bag was the most well-liked canvas bag we tested because of its utilitarian shape and understated appearance.
The Baggu felt sturdy over weeks of testing and didn’t pick up much dirt—and in our experience, the bags have lasted extremely well. Lesley Stockton, our food stylist and senior staff writer on the kitchen team, has owned a Duck Bag for 10 years and has used it for everything from lugging knife rolls and heavy clogs to hauling a giant food processor across New York City. Besides the expected amount of wear and tear, the bag has remained intact without developing any major rips or thin spots. In contrast to the care instructions for our other picks, Baggu recommends machine washing the Duck Bag and line drying it, though you can also wash it by hand.
The Baggu Duck Bag comes with a one-year warranty against defects in material and workmanship, which is common for tote bags, and 65 percent of the 100 percent cotton canvas construction comes from recycled sources.
The Baggu Duck Bag has a large main compartment that snaps shut, as well as a smaller zippered pocket sewn inside. Photo: Sarah Kobos
Pockets and organization:
The Duck Bag’s large main compartment snaps together, and the zippered pouch sewn into its inside is good for your keys, sunglasses, and wallet. “Throw some tampons in there,” said a tester. “No one ever has to know because you don’t ever have to see it!”
The Baggu Duck Bag has two handles for you to hold it a few different ways, but be careful not to carry anything pointy inside that might stick out and poke you in the ribs. Photo: Sarah Kobos
Flaws but not dealbreakers:
Senior staff writer Kaitlyn Wells, who is 5-foot-3, noted that the Baggu hit her body in the wrong place when she was carrying her laptop inside of it. A few of our testers who stood around Kaitlyn’s height also noted this issue, but they found that extending its straps and turning the bag into a crossbody bag helped resolve the problem. We also discovered that items you put into the Duck Bag can poke you through the fabric when you have it slung over your back. In addition, the Baggu is an unconstructed tote, which means that it’s floppy when it’s empty, and it can’t stand on its own until it’s filled with stuff.
Size: 11 by 15¾ by 4¾ inches
Weight: 13 ounces
Strap length: 40 inches
Closure type: snap button
Colors: 12 patterns and colors, including “natural grid”, “brown cow”, “pinto”
