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· 17 Oct 2020

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How to Pick the Best Camping Coolers on the Market: Buying Guide

If you often venture outdoors, having the best rated coolers with you can dramatically change up your experience for the better.

From going out for a picnic trip with your family, going for a hike into the mountains, and even starting a daring expedition into the wild, a cooler will prove to be a useful asset. You don’t even have to be an outdoorsy-person to appreciate some good small coolers. If you like to host parties, coolers can help you set it up with cool drinks!

In this buying guide, we are going to tell you all you need to know about the best coolers on the market.

What Can You Do with a Good Cooler?

If you hike regularly then surely you know how nice it is to have fresh food on the go. Unfortunately, food ingredients can degrade very quickly if they’re not preserved with ice. This is what the best ice chests can help you do. Just throw a couple ice packs into the cooler and lay the ingredients on top and the best models can keep everything nice and cool for you for up to several days.

Other than food, coolers can also be used to preserve drinks like beers, soft drinks, and plain water. Excellent for refreshing while on the move.

How to Pick a Good Cooler?

There are many different things that, as a shopper, you should take into account when you buy a new cooler. But basically, it boils down to four things: type, capacity, ice retention, and cost.

Type

There are three common types of ice cooler on the market:

Hard-sided Cooler: These coolers are constructed for durability in mind. They have an outer shell that’s made from high-quality, impact-resistant plastic to withstand abuse from the environment. Even if you were to drop it or kick it, they’d be able to survive without so much as a scratch. The best hard-sided coolers nowadays are bear-rated, meaning they’ve been certified to be able to survive a bear’s attack. They typically have great ice-retention capability, too. However, they’re notorious for being heavy and expensive.

Soft-sided Cooler: In contrast, soft-sided coolers are constructed from soft, foam-like insulating material instead of hard plastic. Though they’re surely not as durable or capable of the kind of ice-keeping performance hard-sided coolers can offer, they’re lightweight and portable. These good small coolers are great for short trips, parties, or picnics.
Backpack Cooler: Though these aren’t as popular as the two previous types, they’re the most portable out of all. True to their name, they come with a backpack-style strap for you to wear on your body. But portability comes at a cost: their ice-keeping performance, at best, only goes up to about 48 hours. Additionally, they don’t have a lot of capacity due to all of the insulation.

Capacity

Depending on what you do, consider the capacity of your top rated coolers.

Good small coolers have capacity between 10 to 35 quarts. 35 quarts is enough space to store supplies for one person between 1 to 2 days. Consider these coolers if you often go on fishing trips, single-day picnics, short camping trips and hikes.

Some small-sized coolers to take into consideration are the YETI Tundra 35 and the ORCA BW0260ORCORCA cooler.

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Medium sized coolers are between 35 and 55 quarts. We recommend getting them for longer trips roughly a week long. The capacity is enough to sustain about 3 to 4 people for the entirety of the trip with cool drinks and hot meals.

The Coleman Performance Cooler 48-Quart and the SuperHandy Ice Chest 45QT have great ice cooler reviews from customers in the medium range.

If you plan to do a multi-day expedition with a group of dozens, it’s best if you take with you a 55 - 75 quarts cooler. These coolers will provide ample supply storage space for a large group consisting of 5 to 7 people for up to a week. Some models to check out in this group are the YETI Tundra 65 and the Coleman Xtreme 5-Day 62 Quart cooler.

Super-sized coolers up to 120 quarts (like the Igloo 120 Quart Polar) are available if you need them.

Weight

Weight is important when you buy a cooler. Usually, the more durable and high-performing a cooler is, the heavier it’s going to be due to the tough outer casing and the extra insulation layers. Your 120-quart cooler may be relatively lightweight when it’s empty, but add in all of the ice and the contents and it can truly become back-breaking. You will need two, even three people, to help lifting the cooler while you’re on the move.

If you have friends with you who can take up “cooler duty”, then great!

But for those who hike or camp solo, take the lightest and most compact cooler you can get. Your back will thank you.

Ice Retention

Ice retention simply means the amount of time a cooler can keep the ice packs inside from melting. Typically, the manufacturer will have already told you the approximate ice retention time of the cooler on the box. But in reality, the time can fluctuate wildly depending on numerous factors like climate, how well you pack the ice and the contents etc.

The top rated coolers for camping can hold ice for up to 10 days (mileage may vary, of course.)

Overall, depending on how long you plan on being away, pick accordingly the cooler. If you plan on being away for weeks at a time, spend more on a rigid, heavy-duty cooler. Though it’s going to be more costly and heavier to transport, it’d be worth it. On the other hand, if you don’t have such needs, buy a small, affordable cooler and save your money.

Cost

Cost is a pretty big deal. As you can see, the top rated coolers for camping can cost up to hundreds of dollars each. However, there are also many affordable, sub-$100 choices that are just as tempting.

So which one to choose?

Obviously, the higher-end options will provide you with more advantages and benefits: they’re easier to use, they can keep ice for a longer period of time, and are more durable, too. But you will also want to make sure that the cooler you’re aiming at is going to be in your budget and your frequency of use. You don’t want to overspend on best rated coolers that you barely use.

If you’re a professional hiker or is highly enthusiastic and go on a trip several times a month, a premium cooler can be a justifiable purchase. On the other hand, if you use your cooler mostly for parties and picnics, a cheaper one will do just fine.

Conclusion

We hope this guide has helped with equipping you with all of the knowledge necessary to make a decision about what kind of cooler and which model to buy!

If you want to see the top rated coolers for the money, check out our reviews available here right at our site. #Cooler #music #cooler