I’m a TB newbie, and an instant believer.

It started as a search for new luggage -- a bag I could take with me on any adventure.
After pouring over the internet, blog reviews, customer reviews, websites, and backpacking magazines I decided to purchase the Aeronaut 45. After an agonizing 3 days waiting for my new bag to arrive (someone should invent teleportation if only for postal delivery) it came. I opened the box, and it was love at first sight.

But this isn’t a story about the Aeronaut, though amazing (seriously amazing). This is a story about the Brain Bag with the Camera I-O insert.

I’m a videographer for a non-profit camp in central California who recently returned from a work trip to India. My colleagues and I traveled across the world to partner with Harvest India, an organization committed to meeting the needs of the poor and outcast in Southeast India. Our main aim was to dedicate a water well in a remote village and raise awareness in our camps to help meet the needs in India. There are over 100,000 villages in this area alone that still need access to clean drinking water; we want to educate and motivate the 20,000 students who attend our camps to help dedicate more wells.

As I prepared for our trip I started looking for bag solutions. If you’re a traveling videographer or photographer you know the problem. You pack a backpack full of equipment you want to carry-on the plane with you (checking equipment can be risky). When you arrive on site however, you end up toting all of your equipment with you in the backpack. Not only is it heavy, but it’s cumbersome and hardly efficient when you need to swap lenses, batteries or the like.

After receiving my Aeronaut 45, I thought to look for a TOM BIHN solution to my traveling problems. Lo and behold, the solution was in front of me.

TOM BIHN created the Camera I-O bag as an insert for their Brain Bag. The Camera I-O can be removed from the Brain Bag and used separately from the backpack. Genius! Needless to say, I was ecstatic and grateful when Tom Bihn generously donated the backpack and bag for our trip.

I packed the Brain Bag with everything I needed, leaving plenty of room to spare. This came in handy later, when I wanted to carry souvenirs home with me. In addition to the Camera I-O bag, I chose to purchase the Verticle Brain Cell and Snake Charmer.

It was perfect.

I always felt like my camera gear, laptop and personal items were safe. Not only were they safe, but accessible. Airport security was a breeze. When I first purchased the Snake Charmer, I thought of it as just bag for all the cables and chargers I needed. But did you know some international airports ask you to remove batteries and chargers when going through security? I didn’t; but the Snake Charmer was a life-saver! After a 16 hour flight, it’s nice to just pull out a little bag instead of dig through your whole backpack for cables.

I just dragged my Aeronaut 45, Brain Bag, Camera I-O, Snake Charmer and Verticle Brain Cell from California to India, through numerous airports, down dusty streets and through crowded villages. They all came back looking brand new. I know that not only are they going to last forever, but I will be gladly using them for a long time. On my next trip I plan to add the Packing Cube Shoulder Bag and Packing Cube Backpack to my arsenal.

Did I mention that the Brain Cell is my new favorite laptop case? Well it is. It sits beside me in Starbucks as I write.

The Camera I-O with everything else made my trip much smoother and helped me to focus on capturing the right footage. I can’t wait to see campers respond and lives change in India.

Sarah Tuch is a videographer and photographer for Hume Lake. When she's not working she dreams about traveling the world and flying to new places.