I am traveling from west Michigan to hike in the Emigrant Wilderness area and will need to transport my backpack as checked luggage. What do you do? Do you use a big duffle bag to put the backpack in? Do you just tuck in the straps and hope for the best? Any advice would be appreciated. A couple of notes: I can leave some things behind in our rental car and we'll be stopping at an REI store to get stuff like fuel canisters.

When I flew to AK a couple years ago, it was advised to put the pack in a duffle bag, that way also, all is secured, harder to riffle thru stuff, it takes any abuse. STP had some on closeout which helped on price. Be sure to put something easily recognizable on the outside so you aren't the last one to decide that is your pack.
Duane

I pack the EMPTY pack inside a large duffel bag, along with whatever other stuff I am bringing.

No reason to tightly stuff sleeping bag a day longer than necessary...

Also, is easier & more efficient to fill duffel bag with bits & pieces of gear & clothing, rather than with a fully packed backpack plus a few odds & ends.

Furthermore everything is a bit more accessible in duffel bag compared with carefully packed backpack.

I think the pack-in-a-duffle makes good sense, although they usually put backpacks into those plastic trays they keep around for odd baggage. Pretty cheap insurance.
Cheers,

When we did Machu Picchu we just put the packs into an extra suitcase. They fit easily, and we could stuff a lot of the equipment in with them as well. I don't worry so much in the USA, but things do get stolen from airline luggage, and a duffle bag just seems to invite an accident. Plus it does stand out more...

But I don't think any of this is a big worry.

I did the same thing as balzaccom when I flew from San Diego to Denver for some backpacking. I put my backpack in a large suitcase and all was fine. I think you just need to make sure that there are no straps or belts (or anything) that can get caught in the machinery that moves the luggage.

I just leave my backpack as is and go. Sometimes the airline will put it in a plastic bag, sometimes not.

As a retired airline ticket agent and having checked a million passengers' backpacks, I highly recommend putting them in something such as a suitcase or duffle. For years when traveling, we used a sailbag-material duffle when we flew from Miami to Calgary for Canadian Rockies hiking trips. It was light-weight but tough enough to not get ripped, and it kept prying hands out of the pack's pockets.

It was shocking how many kids checked their fancy packs [b]"as is"[/b] when they headed for Latin America from Miami where I worked. I can't tell you the number of hikers who told me on their return that they didn't have a waist strap (torn off) when they got there. And that can be impossible to find in Peru or Panama.

My wife's still working at DIA and highly recommends something to put the packs in. Her (our) airline hasn't provided a plastic bag for anything (including infants' car seats) for years and years now, and fewer airlines have stopped providing them as time goes on and more go bankrupt. Compensation for an unprotected backpack is NOT within the scope of what they pay for when they damage it (check out the fine print), so you're pretty much out of luck if it's destroyed before you hit the trail.

Tiptoe-ing in for a first post...

Our large suitcases hold a backpack quite well, and they're nothing spectacular. I think we bought them at Target and they've held a Kelty 80L bag with 1P tent and sleeping kit, plus boots, poles, and random I-can't-carry-it-on kinda stuff (read knives and other TSA freakout goods) with ease.

I wouldn't recommend dropping a bag on the baggage check as-is whether it's a cheap bag or a bleeding-edge high end kit. If you've ever seen the conveyor system behind the walls, it becomes obvious that any loose strap, tab, dangle-y piece, can get caught and possibly ripped off thanks to the weight of bags being backed up behind it.

I always travel with a small daypack as a carry-on, anyway, with enough to get me through a day or so should the airline send my suitcase to Guatemala or someplace. Never trust baggage to anything you can't go a day without...change of clothing, meds, toiletries, etc.

I have an actual "backpack cover duffel" - light, and MEC here sells them for about 13 dollars.. but in absence of that any large duffel bag works.

It has the added bonus of it looks like a "hockey bag" or "sports bag" - so the airline people don't end up asking stupid questions about stoves and the like.

Pack it in a big duffel/sports bag of some kind - it'll protect your backpack, and it won't look like a backpack.