LOKSAK Waterproof and Sand-Proof Dry Bags
Simple, cheap and genuinely useful, and the company still makes them. These are the reusable sealed bags that keep sand and water out of the things you cannot replace.
What they are good at, which is a narrower job than a dry bag:
- A phone at the beach or on a boat. You can operate a touchscreen through the plastic, which is the whole trick, and take photographs through it.
- Passport and documents, which need to stay dry and flat and are the one thing a soaking genuinely ruins.
- Keeping sand out. Underrated. Sand destroys camera and lens mechanisms, and a sealed bag is the only reliable defence.
What they are not: a substitute for a roll-top dry bag when volume matters, and not rated for depth. They keep water out at the surface; they are not a diving housing.
The failure mode to know: the seal fails when there is anything on it. Sand or grit in the closure is how a bag that worked last week leaks this week. Wipe the seal, close it carefully, and do the fold-and-press test before it matters.
The cheap alternative, honestly: a freezer bag works for one trip and costs almost nothing. The Loksak version is thicker, reusable for years, and has a better seal, which is worth it for a phone and not worth it for socks.
What has changed since this review: phones became water resistant, so the case for one of these on a phone is weaker than it was. It is still the right answer for salt water and sand, which phone ratings do not cover, and for anywhere you would rather not risk the device holding your boarding passes.
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