10 Best Coolers For Camping (2024)
Definitive Review (Buyers Guide, Pros & Cons)

What are the different kinds of coolers?

These days, camping coolers for camping come in such a wide range of designs and price points that it can feel a bit like wading through a minefield when it comes to choosing the best one to fit your individual needs.

That’s where we come in.

To start, here’s a quick rundown of the different kinds you can choose from.

Powered Coolers

As the name suggests, these can be plugged into the power outlet in your car. While this makes them heavier, it can be a huge boon when it’s really hot. Most of them won’t even need any ice to keep your food and drink perfectly chilled.

So what’s bad about them?

Well, they’re going to use electricity so if you’re camping away from your car or want to conserve power they’re probably not the best choice.

They’re also more expensive than most others, due to the extra parts required.

Hard Coolers

This version of cooler makes up the majority of products in our review. Hard coolers, as the name suggests, are made from a rigid plastic casing.

Anything else?

As well as their intended purpose of keeping your food and drink cold, hard coolers make excellent seats, step stools, and side tables.

We can also confirm their suitability for keeping squabbling children separated in the car on long journeys.

Simply place the cooler on the middle seat and you have an instant barrier!

And yes, we’ve tested this out on more than one occasion.

Soft Coolers

Making up the budget en, we have the soft cooler bags. While these come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, they’re all compressible and have carry straps and handles.

They’re not as well insulated as hard ones but are an excellent choice for shorter trips.

What’s bad about them?

Their cooling ability isn’t great, so they certainly won’t keep your food cold for more than a day.

A Note About Food Safety

When thinking about which kind of cooler will suit your needs best, the first thing to think about is the version of food you want to keep cool and for how long.

If you plan to keep any food including meat, eggs, milk or cheese in your cooler than you’ll need to pay close attention to the insulating capabilities of any cooler you’re thinking of buying.

The recommended temperature for keeping fresh foods of this type, as recommended by the USDA, is anywhere below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

You’ll find that soft coolers simply won’t be up to the task of maintaining this temperature for any decent length of time.

That means you’ll need to consider hard and powered coolers.

If you’re mainly looking to store processed foods and drinks then you have a wider margin for error.

That being said, most would agree that keeping our end-of-day beer icy cold is pretty important too!

These are the features to look out for

When choosing the best cooler for your needs, there are a few different things to consider.

Like what?

Well, when we rate coolers, there are a few important metrics to bear in mind. Some, like their ice retention capabilities, are important across the board.

Others, like portability, will matter more to some of us than others. So here’s a quick run-down of the things that we considered when testing, comparing and rating them.

Ease Of Use

The best camping coolers are a joy to use. They’re so well designed and full of intuitive features that you might not notice just how good they are until you try to use a different design.

Here are some things to consider when it comes to choosing the ones which are easy to use.

One of the first things we look for on a cooler is the drainage.

Granted, some cheaper coolers, including soft coolers, won’t have a drain at all.

With these, it’s a case of upending them in order to clean them out.

Most hard coolers usually have one or two drainage holes. These can vary in size, with the idea being that you can use a small drain to allow water to flow out while keeping the ice inside. When it comes to cleaning the entire cooler, simply open the larger drain and your job’s so much quicker.

It’s always worth checking the placement of a drain. You’re looking for one as close to the base of the cooler as possible.

But why?

Well, just imagine trying to clean out a cooler that has a drain 2 inches up the side. You’ll be swilling the dirty water around forever trying to get it to drain.

Not good.

Some drain plugs come complete with a small leash.

This is a genius idea.

No more sending your teenager off to clean the cooler only for them to return minus the plug. If the plug is safely attached to the cooler even when it’s unplugged, then it can’t go missing.

Although we should note that most cooler manufacturers do sell replacement plugs.

The latches come in a range of designs.

Some of these are easy to use, and others are downright annoying.

Plastic latches that need to be snapped or clipped into position are popular and for good reason. They’re easy to use and can often be opened using just one hand.

You might also see latches that are rubberized.

These need to be pulled then stretched to release them from their clip.

This style of the latch is very robust and the least likely to accidentally pop open. The downside is that they need more brute force and usually take two hands to operate. 

Soft coolers are often fastened close with a zip. This makes them easy to use but as the zips aren’t insulated this makes them less efficient at staying cold than a hard cooler.

Finally, some budget options don’t have latches at all. With these, the lid simply slots onto the base. Again, this reduces its insulation capabilities. It’s also easy for these lids to come loose which means that after a few hours, your cooler may not be as cool as you thought.

Build Quality

This varies considerably but as a general rule, the higher the price point of your cooler, the better the construction quality.

Soft coolers are made from fabric, with a layer of insulating material sandwiched in the middle. They’ll often be lined with silver plastic on the inside to help with the retention of cold air inside the cooler.

Budget hard coolers can be found in very basic styro foam insulation or polystyrene. Some versions also use cardboard.

Many hard coolers within the next price bracket will be made from a rigid plastic outer and inner. In between these two layers will be a layer of insulating foam. This is an excellent design that has stood the test of time. It does allow for breakages or cracks to develop in the seals between layers, though.

At the top end, you may see cooler construction being advertised as ‘rotomolded’. This stands for ‘rotationally molded’ as basically means the cooler has been created from a continuous piece of hard plastic that has been molded around insulating foam.

But why is that better?

Rotomolded versions are generally accepted to be the best in terms of construction quality because the molding process means that there aren’t any weak spots.

The casing is created as a single piece, meaning there are no areas where different materials are sealed together. There’s much less chance of cold air escaping, or warm air entering.

Durability

Many coolers come with a pretty hefty price tag, so you want to be sure they’re durable enough to stand up to a good few years of use.

Luckily, we’ve done a lot of hard work for you.

When testing we subjected them to lots of hard use, designed to verify whether the seals, handles, latches, and drains can stand up to intense wear and tear.

A lot do come with a limited warranty, so it’s definitely worth checking this out when you’re comparing models.

Ice Retention

This is really the most important metric to pay attention to. A cooler can look as beautiful as you like, and have all the bells and whistles you could wish for, but if it can’t retain ice (and therefore cold) it’s pretty much useless.

Many cooler manufacturers will state how many days their cooler can retain ice for. Of course, out in the field, this will depend on a whole raft of different factors including how often you open the cooler, whether or not items have been pre-chilled, outside temperature, and what your ratio of ice to food and drink is.

Portability

If you’re planning on camping somewhere that you need to move equipment across any sort of distance, then consider how portable your chosen cooler will be.

As a general rule, coolers are large and fairly cumbersome. Even when they have a handle at each end they can still take quite some carrying.

We’ve bumped our knees, dropped our end of the cooler, and tripped over a rock while trying to navigate a cooler to our cookout area…

That’s not going to be the best start your road trip!

Thankfully, you can now choose to buy a cooler with wheels – such a wonderful invention! Instead of swearing as you drop your cooler and the lid pops open spilling your food, you can now wheel it (almost) effortlessly over a wide variety of terrain.

You can choose from a wide range of wheel styles as well.

From small wheels intended for short trips, to inflatable ones for seriously rugged terrain.

When it comes to portability, another thing you should bear in mind is the type of handles a cooler comes with.

Especially if it doesn’t have wheels.

Some handles are uncomfortably small, especially when compared to the size of the cooler.

You might struggle to hold them easily or find your fingers slipping as you try to hold the weight of a fully-loaded cooler.

Indented handles can be easier to hold, as well as leaving the outside form of the cooler essentially unchanged. While this might not seem like an important point – it certainly makes them easier to pack into the trunk of your car.

Others may have handles that stick out from the side of the cooler.

While these are undeniably easy to hold, they do get in the way when it comes to packing.

Jargon Buster

As we mentioned earlier, you might see coolers advertised as ‘rotomolded’. This refers to the manufacturing process which typically results in those with the best insulating capabilities.

There’s another piece of jargon we’ve seen in plenty of cooler advertisements… IGBC certified.

The IGBC is the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, which is tasked with stipulating regulations around how best to store your food when camping in areas with bear populations.

The IGBC has a minimum standard they test coolers against.

Those that pass, get certified.

Bear in mind, that this certification in no way guarantees that a cooler will be completely and utterly bear-proof. It only means that the cooler has been approved as one that reduces easy access to the contents of the cooler.

It also means the amount of odor coming from the cooler is lower, which in turn should reduce the amount of wildlife attracted to it.

Sometimes that includes the use of locks, which have to be purchased separately.

With that said, if you intend to camp in bear country then you’ll definitely want to choose a cooler which has earned this certification.