BLEU DE CHAUFFE HOBO TRAVEL BAGS & QUAINT COUNTRYSIDE BED AND BREAKFASTS

Images via Cultizm

Holy smokes, this Hobo Travel Bag from Bleu de Chauffe makes me want to abandon my entire life, hop on a passing freight train, and ride the rails for the rest of my days like the noble migrant workers of yore. Of course, very few people (and even fewer actual hobos) can afford to drop 730 USD on a weekender bag, even if it is the most glorious weekender bag of them all: handmade in France out of high quality vegetable-tanned leather, in a colorway deliciously named “Cuba Libre”. A humble bindle stick it is not. Is there not something desperately romantic about becoming a drifter and moving from shanty town to shanty town? I’m trying to not mention the Cleveland Torso Murders, because I’m trying so hard to keep this post light, but whenever I think about old-timey drifters, my mind goes straight to the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, the serial killer who beheaded and dismembered at least twelve people between 1935 and 1938. Many of the victims were castrated. The killer was never apprehended and never identified. But that was a long time ago and we’re keeping the tone light, so let’s focus on the bag and not a series of horrific murders that even legendary lawman Eliot Ness failed to solve. Okay, light tone, here we go. You know what’s super duper nice? Packing your favorite bag and jetting off for a weekend getaway at a quaint bed and breakfast somewhere in the countryside. Nothing eases the stress of modern life like a couple days of reclaimed wood, vintage wallpaper, and comforting room service. Egg-in-a-hole made with farm fresh eggs and homemade sourdough? Don’t mind if I do. Bonus points if the proprietors are an elderly married couple who refer to themselves as “innkeepers” and their guests as “honey”. Their enduring love is truly an inspiration to us all. Negative points if you happen to wander into the basement and find an antique gynecological examination table equipped with rusted shackles and an old wooden shelf filled with preserved fetuses in moldy Mason jars. I don’t know about you, but I usually take at least one star off of my TripAdvisor review when that happens to me -RB