Yeti vs other super-heavily-insulated coolers

[Conundrum]

Seriously. Can’t river runners just eat some canned or freeze dried shit for the last 2 days of their trip and not obsess about 31 more hours of ice retention?

Now that's not nice. Cocktail ice on day 7 or 8 is a welcome treat.

[Peruvian]

Now that's not nice. Cocktail ice on day 7 or 8 is a welcome treat.

I shouldn’t have to, but...

[Conundrum]

We’ve been using a Hydro-flask as a growler to bring beer to the beach. Even my black one (gift) keeps liquid cold for hours.

What's wrong with warm beer? It's infinitely colder than no beer.

[Peruvian]

What's wrong with warm beer? It's infinitely colder than no beer.

If I was at the beach for 3 days and all that was in my Hydro Flask was warm beer, I would consider it.

Then again, I might just have it dipped in the water to keep it chilled. It is waterproof, after all.

[Conundrum]

If I was at the beach for 3 days and all that was in my Hydro Flask was warm beer, I would consider it.

Then again, I might just have it dipped in the water to keep it chilled. It is waterproof, after all.

Same reason I like cocktail ice on day 8 except I can't dip ice in a river to keep it cold.

[AK47bp]

I wonder if there are any coolers that fit into other coolers.
Kinda a cooler Cooler so to speak?

Your talkin about a quad walled cooler?


Completely unheard of.


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[sb]

[old goat]

Having seen many vids of guys that throw ice in multiple coolers, side by side, and then check the temp and status of the ice over many days, did ATK do something different in their test?

Yeah, they did a bunch of tests, but I'm not going to tell you.
Thanks for letting me know about all the vids. Not sure why anyone would watch more than one or two though.

[chaka]

I shouldn’t have to, but...

My other favorite:

[refried]

I wonder if there are any coolers that fit into other coolers.
Kinda a cooler Cooler so to speak?

I have 3 softside coolers from Norchill that will fit into each other, the small fits in the medium, and the medium fits in the large. They're really convenient for going to Costco then having to wait several hours for the ferry, we use one for frozen, one for cold stuff, and one for hot food to eat while waiting.

I highly recommend them
https://norchillcoolers.com/

[Name Redacted]

Thats how you get super clear ice cubes or balls for cocktails FYI. All abut the slow freeze. Put them inside a few coolers inside the freezer and wait.

[fool]

Latest thoughts on coolers? I've been going down the rabbit hole a bit lately...

Looking for a cooler for 2-4 day car camping trips for 2ish people usually, thinking 20-40L. Soft vs. hard guidance? Assume basically hard is more insulated but harder to move around? Updated thoughts on Canyon, REI, or Yeti coolers? Here are a few that I'm looking at:

Soft, REI 24: https://www.rei.com/product/147979/r...24-soft-cooler
Soft, REI 24, Cheap (probably a good backup/simple cooler and might buy anyway given price): https://www.rei.com/product/148043/r...24-soft-cooler
Soft, Yeti 30: https://www.rei.com/product/162814/y...30-soft-cooler
Soft, Canyon 30: https://canyoncoolers.com/products/nomad-30

Hard, Yeti 35: https://www.rei.com/product/852548/y...AQUIFER%20BLUE
Hard, Canyon 30: https://canyoncoolers.com/products/outfitter-35

[EWG]

I have a Yeti, a RTIC, a monoprice Pureoutdoor, some Coleman Xtremes, and a polar bear.

For what you want to do you want a hard cooler. I suggest the monoprice PureOutdoor. Built essentially the same as the Yeti for a third the price. If you want something that holds ice about half as long and is much less durable and is far cheaper, but still a good cooler, I like the Coleman Cyrene series.

If you choose a soft sided cooler I’d go RTIC or Yeti. Soft side cooler are much more dependent on assembly quality and the cheaper ones use worse materials. RTIC and Yeti are essentially identical here - in fact Yeti sued RTIC because their product was identical. RTIC is cheaper.


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[MagnificentUnicorn]

Lifetime cooler. Way better value than other similar coolers. Made in USA. Kept ice for a five day road trip.
I think my 55 quart was about $150


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[Pinned]

If you can afford a nice cooler like a Yeti you're paying for customer service and maybe slightly better finish quality. I've bought both Yeti and RTIC gear. Had a pretty lame experience with RTIC customer service - they refused to replace a broken part that shouldn't have broken. The design of their Yeti copycat part was worse and I was pretty sure the replacement would break too. I emailed Yeti to ask them if I could purchase their replacement part, if I'm spending money I may as well get the better part. Yeti emailed me back about 20 minutes later with a tracking number as they had my address from a prior purchase - refused to let me pay.

So I've given away all my RTIC stuff, sticking with Yeti based on that.

There isn't really any voodoo with coolers though. I've got fancier ones and cheaper ones - I just try to balance the "will this last me long enough to be worth it or am I just going to go buy the more expensive one later and waste money on the cheap one" factor.

[Bunion 2020]

Seriously. Can’t river runners just eat some canned or freeze dried shit for the last 2 days of their trip and not obsess about 31 more hours of ice retention?

Did a 21 day 16 person Grand trip and it was an amazing time, good folks, good water.

The Trip leader still talks about how we had ice on day 21 before any of the other things that were wonderful. Some people are weird.

Did another 16 day Grand trip, 4 people, 1 raft, 1 micro cat, 3 kayaks, kayakers took turns rowing the gear raft. No ice after day 5, very simple food, not much beer other than what we scrounged from eddies and commercial trips, it was a whiskey and weed trip. Great experience, none of us missed the ice.

[lrn2swim]

Latest thoughts on coolers? I've been going down the rabbit hole a bit lately...

Looking for a cooler for 2-4 day car camping trips for 2ish people usually, thinking 20-40L. Soft vs. hard guidance?

Updated thoughts on Canyon, REI, or Yeti coolers? Here are a few that I'm looking at:


Hard, Yeti 35: https://www.rei.com/product/852548/y...AQUIFER%20BLUE

I have the Yeti Tundra 45, nothing but great things to say about it. A few years ago we drove from Seattle to Jackson WY in July with it in the back of a Suburu. Prechilled it before loading it up and the ice lasted a full 7 days before having to drain and add more. It's been super durable for weekend camping trips, etc. Only downsides are it being pretty heavy and you don't get a lot of actual cooler space for how big it is but I think the trade offs are well worth it

[Falcon3]

I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again. If you’re car camping get a DC compressor fridge. You can find them for about the same as a Yeti or the the high priced rotomolds

Never worry about buying ice
Never worry about soggy food
Never worry about that meat you left in there that might have gotten pretty warm on the top of the cooler
Never have your apples floating in mystery meat juice
Never have to throw out uneaten food at the end of the trip because it was floating in questionable water by the end

I’ve got a TruckFridge brand and it’s easily the best camping purchase I’ve ever made in my entire life.

[Cruiser]

^^^ The Massimo brand ones are very well reviewed and on sale at Costco right now.

[jmedslc]

If you're going with a cooler vs a powered fridge unit, then the rotomolded hard shell coolers will FAR outperform any soft cooler. Go for rotomolded style and be sure you buy big enough for your purpose.

Note: a 30L cooler is VERY small inside even though it looks big on the outside. I personally would not go smaller than a 65 for car camping.

with these type of coolers the brand doesn't matter so much, but i've found that certain brands have better latches and can be locked, etc. Yeti is the big dong in the mainstream market and is pretty damn pricey. I have an RTIC 125 for the boat and it's comparable in terms of performance and was much cheaper than a comparable yeti. look around for some coupons or deals and you can get one for a good price. REI has a member 20% coupon coming up and you can use that on Yeti.

lastly, soft coolers vary widely on quality and performance. the zipper is a notable problem area on soft coolers. I do not recommend soft coolers for most applications, unless you need real portability, like concerts, festivals, etc.

stay cool!

[MakersTeleMark]

Go big, go hard.

[2FUNKY]

Lifetime cooler. Way better value than other similar coolers. Made in USA. Kept ice for a five day road trip.
I think my 55 quart was about $150


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I have the 55, it is $107 and is a super nice cooler. I prefer the latches over any other rotomold cooler. Looking at adding the 77 as well. They are $168. The Lifetime compared to Yeti and Rtic is a much better cooler due to the latches alone, American made and retains ice just as well. The only downfall is not being able to throw out the name Yeti every chance you can during a conversation like all Yeti owners.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I have the 55, it is $107 and is a super nice cooler. I prefer the latches over any other rotomold cooler. Looking at adding the 77 as well. They are $168. The Lifetime compared to Yeti and Rtic is a much better cooler due to the latches alone, American made and retains ice just as well. The only downfall is not being able to throw out the name Yeti every chance you can during a conversation like all Yeti owners.

Oh yeah, my bad. I have the 77. It was right around $150 at Walmart. The latches are better. I like it so much I bought the small one too.


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[plugboots]

We have a soft sided rtic, and love it, but I think for 4 days of car camping you need a hard side.

[gimpy]

Another vote for lifetime coolers here........the 55 for $100 is the best value/performance imho