Peak Design City Sling Review

If you’re a photographer, there’s a good chance you know about Peak Design. Even if you’re not, the brand makes a lot of travel-focused and everyday carry gear that works for everyone, not just shutterbugs. Its latest launch, the City Line, is a collection of bags you’ll carry everywhere. The six-bag collection pairs lightweight design with easy-to-use functionality to simplify your daily carry, but does it work? We’ve been taking the Peak Design City Sling for a spin around town to find out.

External Components

For the exterior material, Peak Design uses Mono Shell™ 660D, a recycled, bluesign®-approved, crinkle nylon. We’ve got the Moon colorway, a light taupe-like beige, but you can get it in a variety of other colors, including Black, Cypress (green), and Lapis (blue).

We like the light-colored hue, but it is prone to showing stains. As the primary tester, I found that out firsthand. I walked with it to a car cruise, then ate standing up. No sooner had my husband commented that “chocolate melts in the heat” than a chip fell off my double-chocolate cookie, landing on the sling on my chest. I regret nothing, however, since it gave me a chance to put the material to the test (and the cookie was delicious).

I immediately used some water from my bottle to try and wipe it off, and the liquid beaded up and rolled off the fabric, thanks to the PFAS-free DWR coating. Once I got home and emptied the sling, I used dish soap and water on the chocolate stains. It quickly came completely clean, and no moisture got inside the sling, despite my dousing it with water under the faucet and scrubbing away. The material also dries quickly. All this is to say that you don’t have to avoid the lighter colorways just because they could get dirty.

Along with durable, washable fabric, this 2L sling has capable hardware: YKK zippers with webbing pulls that are easy to grab, a Duraflex Hardware buckle that is low-profile, and an aluminum adjuster on the strap. That adjuster doesn’t always slide smoothly on the nylon webbing strap, but the upside is that it stays in place once you get it where you want it. There’s also a small aluminum D-ring on the side to connect other gear. We never used it, and it tends to get a little noisy when you walk if you keep the zippers on the same side, but it’s otherwise unremarkable.

There’s no back panel padding or breathable mesh. This is a simple sling, and Peak Design didn’t overthink it on the harness system. It’s fine for something this small.

Fit Notes

We’re happiest wearing the City Sling crossbody, but the position of the straps on the sides suggests that Peak Design may have intended it primarily as a waist pack. We only say that because the straps stick straight out from the sides, causing the sling to hang looser on your chest than it might if the straps were angled upward. Most of the time, it tends to lean forward instead of sitting flush with your body. It’s not uncommon for slings to be carried in multiple ways, so it doesn’t bother us much. However, if we had our say, we would have positioned the straps a little differently to mitigate that.

You can wear it as a waist pack, of course, although it still hangs loosely on smaller users, even when cinched as tightly as possible. So, if that’s you and you’d rather not wear your waist pack slung around your hips like low-rise jeans, you’ll probably prefer it crossbody.

Inside The Sling

The only exterior pocket on the Peak Design City Sling is a simple slip pocket with a magnetic topper. It’s a strong magnet, and the pocket is intended for your phone, which is really convenient. Even large phones will fit inside, though the pocket might not close over them. On the other hand, a standard or mini phone fits inside nicely, and you can still secure the top to keep it from falling out. It even includes a pass-through so you can feed a cord through that’s connected to a battery bank in the main compartment to charge your phone on the go. We really appreciate having our phone handy like this, but you could use it for other flat gear instead, like a passport or your wallet.

When you open the main compartment, you’ll find the other side of the pass-through on the right against the back panel.

You’ll also find a floating divider that can flex toward or away from the back panel, depending on how much gear you carry in this section and elsewhere. It has three stretchy pockets: two wider ones on either side that hold hand sanitizer, AirPods, or other small accessories, and a skinny one in the center. It looks like a pen slot, but if you put a full-size pen inside, you can’t zip the sling closed. Peak Design shows it as holding a tube of lip balm on their site, but our lip balms (which we thought were standard size) are too short for the pocket and fall below the lip. Instead, we’ve been keeping two tubes of lip balm in one of the wider pockets and leaving the middle one empty. If you travel with a mini pen to fill out forms, it would definitely fit here, and we think that would be a better option.

Flipping to the front of the sling, you’ll find two larger, slightly less stretchy pockets. They fit a minimalist wallet nicely, and we tossed a travel bottle of hand lotion in the other, but each also has a hidden purpose.

The one on the left has a long leash with a key clip at the end, and the one on the right has a hidden pocket for an AirTag or other small, round smart tracker. We wouldn’t have known it was there if Peak Design didn’t label it with a disposable tag, so it’s pretty well hidden.

Then, there’s space remaining for other travel essentials. I put a packable tote bag at the bottom of the front and set my sunglasses on top. Against the back panel, I put a packet of tissues and a pen, but if you wanted to carry a battery bank, this is where you’d put it to keep it near the pass-through for your phone. There’s a decent amount of space to fill; you just have to realize that everything will end up pretty segmented. This isn’t an open dump space—you have to carefully consider where everything goes and then follow through. That’s great for finding things quickly in the checkout line, but not as great if you’re the type of traveler who continually tosses things into a bag and worries about where they are later. Luckily, as the primary tester, I’m more of the former than the latter, so I really enjoyed testing the City Sling.

It’s meant to be a daily driver, and it does it well. So, if you’re looking for a small bag to keep the essentials close at hand at home and on a trip, it might be right for you. And hey, if you spill chocolate on it and attack it with some soap, it’ll look good as new.