I am a college student with a growing interest in the outdoors - mostly bushcraft and hyperlight travel - but no experience. I am going abroad to do a homestay in a village and some light trail work this month and my parents got me a beautiful backpack, an Osprey Talon 44, which I will have no use for - a school pack would do just as well (and not mark me as a target in the city, but oh well).

I've got to bring it anyway, of course, but after this trip, I want to start giving this great pack the use it deserves. I go to school in Northeast Ohio and there are some beautiful places to take a weekend or week-long trip. But I don't know the first thing about hiking. How many days of travel is my pack suited for, and is it possible to take a trip that long without buying anything else? (I can borrow a tent, sleeping bag and other beginner essentials from my school's outing club.) Or is this backpack such a silly thing to own that I should just return it and risk hurting my parents' feelings?

Relatedly, about the aforementioned essentials - I am more interested in tarp-camping than tent-camping, and have slept out happily sans sleeping bag in piles of brush. I think it would be more prudent to start more conventionally, however. Did any of you dive into lighter travel without initially lugging along tents and such? What was your experience like? Would you recommend it?