Today the cheapest insulated tote on Yeti’s website is an $80 soft-sided lunch bag, akin to a brown paper sack on steroids (but glaringly vulnerable to bears). Similar to any other true roto-molded cooler, the RTIC 65 is practically indestructible, which makes it great for tougher outdoor environments. In our testing, the RTIC 65 kept ice frozen for 10 days with some periodic draining. We’ve also used this cooler for nearly five years for grocery runs in Hawaii, and it’s still going strong.
Many of the options we tested have this feature, including the Pelican Wheeled, Arctic Titan, Xspec, and Igloo IMX. Still, others have specific slots to tie them down in your boat, backseat, or truck bed. Igloo also offers cooler totes and bags for everyday use, like taking your lunch to work or school. As you search for the right cooler to choose, the many options available can make it intimidating to ensure you find the right one. Really, it all comes down to which cooler best suits your needs and works for the activity you have planned. Additionally, MaxCold insulation helps keep your refreshments cool well into the day, ensuring a hydrating drink or satisfying snack when you need it most.
We have a family member who purchased an original YETI Tundra back when the line first hit the market in 2008, and the cooler is basically like new today (he had to replace one rubber latch after more than 10 years of use, but that’s it). This means that when you’re making the calculation of whether spending $300 or $400 on a cooler is worth it, you are getting a product that literally should last for decades. That said, if you don’t need multi-day ice retention, even a cheaper hard-sided cooler should be around for many years as well. We have hardside coolers with a rugged build, handy features, easy carrying capabilities and, most importantly, up to seven days of ice retention — because you can’t properly go camping without a fully packed cooler.
As committed cooler enthusiasts know, the type of ice you use heavily impacts how much you’re able to store and how long it stays cold. Crushed ice is the most readily available—you can find it at most gas stations and supermarkets for fairly cheap. The major draw is that it easily fills the gaps between your food and beverages, cooling them quickly and efficiently. However, crushed ice is also the fastest to melt and you’ll likely need to replace it fairly frequently. Blocks of ice, on the other hand, take much longer to melt than crushed ice.
Many companies have spent an astronomical amount of money and time to convince people that they need to spend ridiculous sums just to keep a drink cold. Coolers aren’t complicated, which is a good thing to remember in the face of all that advertising. After spending many years evaluating more than 40 cooler models, we’ve chosen eight that are well made, well insulated, igloo electric cooler and well suited for a range of outings. The RovR RollR, Arctic Titan, Yeti Tundra 65, and Igloo IMX all come with practical interior dry storage options, which is great for holding aside some clean ice for drinks or keeping sensitive food out of ice water. The Igloo IMX’s wire basket is a tighter wire weave, which helps keep smaller items contained.
Fresh, delicious snacks and ice-cold beverages are an easy way to make sure your next office barbecue is a hit. This ice chest provides you with ample space for sandwiches and drinks, so everyone can enjoy something to eat and drink. The Xspec and Roadie 24 are also notable for innovative and fairly effortless latch experiences. They combine a rubber latch for tightness and security with a plastic locking mechanism that makes them a breeze to use and requires much less brute strength than any of the 100% rubber latches demand. The Kenai 65 features mostly rubber, stretchy latches but swaps out the rubber T-grip section for short metal posts that grip grooves underneath the rim of the body.
The Roadie 24 is just over 13 inches tall inside, which allows standard wine and 2L bottles to stand upright. The Roadie also outlasted all other personal-sized models in our insulation testing. Just as its name suggests, this little box has proved itself to be our go-to road trip companion.
The Engel and Tundra 65 are both relatively portable — their combined overall shapes and mid-50-quart capacities make finding what you’re looking for easier. They’re big enough to bring everything you need without being so big that they require two people to lift them out of the car. Equally as important, the RovR’s handle swings out far enough from the chest’s body to avoid painful heel smashing.
These products proved to be very durable, despite the fact our team was unable to find a grizzly bear willing to test each of them rigorously. The market for ice chests continues to grow over the years, resulting in some extremely close competition and hard-fought rivalries. To help you find the right model, we tease apart performance differences between contenders, implementing specific tests spanning five exhaustive, mutually exclusive metrics. We test the insulation performance, durability, ease of use, portability, and features of every single model. As some performance aspects are more important than others, we weigh each metric accordingly. Below, we discuss our test results and which models stand out in each area.
This makes it more comfortable to carry but also frequently positions the handle in a way where it inhibits opening the lid. It also lacks a drainage port, and this version doesn’t boast the IGBC certification of larger Yeti hard coolers. Yet, because it’s so small (relatively speaking), we hardly miss those extra features. The Roadie is not airtight or leakproof — there is a sizeable gap where the ends of the rubber seals meet that’s only covered by a piece of fabric tape.