Tote bags are made for the days when the essentials have turned into considerably more than the essentials. With extra carrying space and an easy shape, a tote can handle everything from your everyday belongings to the things you pick up, bring along, or decide you might need later. They work for errands, shopping, work, appointments, days out, and all the ordinary situations where having a little more room makes life easier.

Some people carry a tote as their everyday bag, while others keep one around specifically for the days when a smaller handbag isn’t going to cut it. They can head to work with a laptop and lunch, come along for a beach day, carry purchases home, hold the extras on a trip, or become the bag that gets grabbed whenever nobody quite knows how much stuff is coming along. That flexibility is part of what makes totes such an easy category to find a place for — you don’t necessarily need one particular reason to use one.

And then there’s the inevitable tote phenomenon: you leave home carrying your own things and somehow return with considerably more. A jacket comes off, someone hands you something to hold, you stop somewhere on the way home, or the one quick errand becomes several. Having extra carrying space means you don’t have to predict all of that before you walk out the door. Whether it’s your regular shoulder bag or the one you reach for whenever the day looks like it might involve a little more stuff, a good tote is ready for the plans you made and everything that gets added afterward.