I have been thinking about getting a new cooler. I have looked at them all. Yeti seemed to be small and very expensive. I borowed a friends Pelican cooler it was a little bigger and cheaper than a yeti. Looking for other choices and experiences with them. Thanks
What are you trying to keep cold and for how long? If you’re hauling elk quarters out on logging trails in bear country the high end coolers might make sense for you. If you’re like me and you want a 20# bag of ice to keep food and beer for 3 guys cold for 3 – 4 days when we’re on our fishing trips where the next $2 bag of ice is as close as the next gas station then a $60 – $80 Coleman or similar is tough to beat.
I have an older igloo MAX. For the money I spent on it, it keeps ice very well. Clearance at target about 10 years ago
I have some bigger marine Coleman and igloo coolers, for the price, I couldn’t be happier, use them in the boundary waters, and if you freeze or chill everything ahead of time, will hold ice for 5-7 days no problem, keep in the shade and only open when necessary.
Otter is in the Cooler business as well. I havent used one, but I imagine this one is similar to the YETI/Pelican, etc.
What James said! There seems to be a trend to buy the new high-end coolers that are all the rage now. To me, it just seems like 90% of guys really don’t need a $400 cooler. I make 1 quart blocks of ice, and my Igloo “5-day” coolers do the trick for long-weekend camping trips, and that’s all I need.
I’ve got a friend that works for Pelican (ie nice discount), yet I’ve never felt the need to splurge on one.
I have a Coleman Steel Belted 54 quart and for the money they are pretty great coolers. It sounds like 54 quarts is small for your usage though. I got mine slightly used off CList which was a steel. Had ice in it all weekend at a softball tournament and still came home with the majority of it – it was HOT out too.
$400 dollar coolers. 
No wonder I’m turning into a curmudgeon. My first car cost $50. Am I going to pay eight times as much for a cooler as I did for my first car? Nope.
SR
I used to but stainless steel Coleman 54 Quart coolers and ended up buying a new one every two years because they would wore out (mainly bust hinges or hinges would wore out, i even sent on back under warranty). I bought a 65 quart yeti about 8 years ago and haven’t look back. Now I have 65, 50 and 35 quart yeti. I know that they are expensive. But in my opinion the are wroth every penny. Some say they don’t hold ice any better than a cheap cooler. But if you get it cold and put your product cold you wont have any problem. I go camping for a week at a time put 30 pounds of ice in the beer and pop cooler and end up throwing ice out at the end of trip
I think we have an Igloo 5-day cooler. It’s gray whatever it is. Bags of ice seem to melt away too quickly, so we were using quart-size milk containers. We would fill them up with water and freeze them. Recently, we have found that the solid plastic of the Simply Orange juice bottles make for great ice containers! We freeze them and put one in each corner of the cooler. When we get home, we thaw and dry them and stick them in the closet ‘til the next trip.
I do the same thing as Sharon… those bottles are great.
Another big way to get a lot more life out of your ice, is put a heavy towel in the cooler. Limit the space the ice has to keep cold, and it will at times double the life of the ice in those bottles. I’ve had it actually cause a little ice to form in my drinking water bottles doing this.
I have just about every size cooler you can get, that way I have something for a day trip or 5 day fishing trip. I like the rectangular half gallon milk jugs. I freeze them standing up without the cap on so that they don’t get froze out of shape. Make sure it is not too full of water. Once frozen put cap on and good to go as most coolers are rectangular in shape so you can stack them in a corner or lay flat in a big cooler. Most of my coolers are either Coleman or Thermos. I have looked at Yeti’s, Pelicans, Grizzly, etc. but I don’t want a cooler that is so expensive that you need to carry an insurance policy on it.:???:
x2 with James and Wiggum
What are you using it for is the key question?
Just spent the winter on this topic.
Summary:
If you have easy option for resupply and don’t need it for many days go with an economical cooler. One that gets best bang for the buck award is the Extreme series from Coleman.
If you have many days without option for resupply then a high end expensive cooler may be the ticket. Yeti/Engle/etc. They make them in many sizes.
Example: Rainy lake north arm for 8 days in June. Prior years we would be out of ice around day 5-6. Took a Yeti 65 with three ten pound blocks of ice this year at solstice. Day 8 we came out with about 5 pounds left. We were able to catch fish on the next to last day and bring some home. Bonus is they can be bear proofed.
Even with the success what do I think? The Yeti is awesome and does work considerable better. I can’t say it’s worth the money if you’re paying full price. I had REI dividend cash and it was on sale. So for me it was a good purchase.
This test shows that the Coleman Extreme holds up quite well against the big names. They name it the best bang for your buck.
BTW – The Colman Extreme comes in around $40-50 depending on model and place of purchase.
Even with the success what do I think? The Yeti is awesome and does work considerable better. I can’t say it’s worth the money if you’re paying full price. I had REI dividend cash and it was on sale. So for me it was a good purchase.
my problem with cheap coolers is over a 6 year period of buy 54 quart Steel Cooler Stainless at $200.00 each (and replacing them every two years) I am now money ahead
I will admit they are expensive but the are durable.
Even with the success what do I think? The Yeti is awesome and does work considerable better. I can’t say it’s worth the money if you’re paying full price. I had REI dividend cash and it was on sale. So for me it was a good purchase.
my problem with cheap coolers is over a 6 year period of buy 54 quart Steel Cooler Stainless at $200.00 each (and replacing them every two years) I am now money ahead
I will admit they are expensive but the are durable.
How do you damage a cooler? And this is an honest request for info. I’m miserably hard on stuff and I’ve had the same cooler(s) for… longer than I can remember.
There’s definitely a market for the indestructible, high end coolers. If I was going to be away from a resupply of ice for a week at a crack… I’d definitely consider it. But that’s not a personal need, currently.
Side note, if you ever damage a hinge on a cooler DON”T THROW IT OUT. You can get replacement parts for just about any cooler made for $3 – $6. http://www.coleman.com/Parts/Parts%20-%20Hinges/parts-hinges
How do you damage a cooler? And this is an honest request for info. I’m miserably hard on stuff and I’ve had the same cooler(s) for… longer than I can remember.
the hinges break on an outing. the someone else goes in cooler not realizing they are broke or don’t care then breaks other hinge and bends lid.
Check out Igloo Sportsman series
the hinges break on an outing. the someone else goes in cooler not realizing they are broke or don’t care then breaks other hinge and bends lid.
Solution. Don’t keep booze in the cooler. It’ll keep the drunks out.
I love my Coleman extreme best $10 garage sale purchase yet, nudging out a spam shirt from bk! Ha
The best thing you can do is to take one for drinks and one for food. The one with drinks is the one you are going to be going into a lot throughout the day, and all the opening and closing is going to make the ice go through fast. For the one with food, put something heavy on top of it to make sure the lid is completely closed.
The other suggestion is to have a mix of block ice and cubed. And to chill or free everything before it even goes into the cooler. Putting room temperature drinks into the cooler is asking a lot of the ice to cool it down. For meats, freeze them beforehand. By the time you are ready to cook them, they will have thawed out a bit in the cooler.
Colman extreme best bang for the buck. Last spring I watched the video on the cooler test and went with extreme and couldn’t be happier
If your opening a cooler so many times that your wearing hinges out, no amount of ice and no amount of $$$ spent on a cooler will keep your pops cold…. 
I find the biggest issue is guys expect cube ice to last several days. Have any of you actually looked at most of the ice cubes you buy? They are hollow on the inside. More surface area to thaw. Solid cube ice is the best, but most places do not carry it. I start weeks in advance storing ice from my freezer ice maker. put it in Ziploc baggies for the trip.
Cube ice is really pointless though IMO. The only reason to bring it with is if you mix drinks. You want ice to last get block ice or freeze water jugs, etc. That is the way to do it.
A couple years ago I bought some dry ice for our LOW camping trip. Considering it is hard to find and I had to buy it a day earlier than the trip started it didn’t work out quite as well as I had hoped.
Dry ice sublimates about 8# per day. It will make everything in that cooler rock solid though. The tricky part is you need large blocks for it to last. Example, 2 4# blocks will be gone before 1 8# block. The good thing is you have delayed the melting process of any regular ice in that cooler for as long as that dry ice sticks around. Another bad, aside from the availability is its pricey. $1.80 or so a pound, but, it could make the difference in having ice left over at the end of the week. Definitely a good idea if you are packing out a big game animal.
I purchased a K2 cooler last year and love it. One bag of ice will last all weekend in the sun with plenty to spare. You have to cool the cooler down before you fill it, however.
After ruining over a dozen coolers went to Yeti, Now the only cooler without bear tooth holes in them. Try standing or sitting on your coleman or igloo and see how long they last. Not everyone needs the high end but if I would have started with them I would be money ahead. All depends how hard you are on stuff, I use mine for hunting in the fall and that is when the bears get at them. Also take a look at the lid construction and the seal. Rain gets into the cheaper ones without a seal.
I guess it depends how much you use it, how long and how hard,
After ruining over a dozen coolers went to Yeti, Now the only cooler without bear tooth holes in them. Try standing or sitting on your coleman or igloo and see how long they last. Not everyone needs the high end but if I would have started with them I would be money ahead. All depends how hard you are on stuff, I use mine for hunting in the fall and that is when the bears get at them. Also take a look at the lid construction and the seal. Rain gets into the cheaper ones without a seal.
I guess it depends how much you use it, how long and how hard,
.
X2
Anybody think of using one of thosee 12v DC fridge/freezer chest cooler? Spendy but for $100 more than a large yetti seem would be more versitile.
Keep you stuff cold/frozen up to the lake then freeze the fish on the way back. Ive even thought about for in the boat to keep the fish in instead of a livewell on those hot days. Dont know how fast it would go through a battery at 75/1 amp draw
http://www.compactappliance.com/FP630-Spacious-EdgeStar-Portable-Refrigerator-Freezer/FP630.html
Yeti 110 – ice down with some silver bullets!
We would take a small chest freezer and a generator with us on the long camping/fishing trips. Frozen food on the way and frozen fish on the way back.
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