Yes, there are a few women's shorts at REI that have upper pockets that are a little larger, but that placement is not idea for carrying things because of the bend of the leg at the hip. I found the old-style women's REI Sahara shorts to be perfect while walking the Camino across Spain. Most of what I carried was in my backpack, but I carried my passport and money in one side pocket and my cell phone (mostly for taking pictures) in the other pocket. Being the forgetful type, I made it a habit to pat my side pockets before starting off to walk. It was also handy to have these valuables on my person to avoid them being stolen. I use those pockets, along with a backpack, while hiking in the wilderness, too. Being the only real women's cargo shorts in the store, I'm not sure why REI would reduce the pocket size in the Sahara shorts. I used to manage a backpacking store and made sure to order a variety of styles of clothing that would meet different needs for outdoors people, being aware that women who care more about style than function would likely be shopping elsewhere for clothing most of the time, anyway. REI already has a number of kinds of bootie shorts and didn't need the ONE cargo short style to be changed. Clearly real cargo shorts still sell to people who go outdoors, because the men's department sells a number of them. As others recommended, I guess I'll buy them in the men's department, if I can find some that fit. It just irks me that women's clothing, even in an outdoors shop, has to be designed to accentuate the figure. I find this insulting. I hope you will pass this along to the upper management. Thanks!
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