Coolers

We have had the Gott, the Coleman Extreme and the Yeti. Although pricey, the Yeti is by far the best going, in our opinion. The draw back is the weight. We have a Yeti 65 & a 35. My DW & I, both retires seniors who love to camp have limitations and one large cooler was out of the question. With any cooler common sense prevails, pre-chill, keep full, and keep out of direct sunlight. With all this said and equal the Yeti is by far, in our opinion, the better product. Very pricey, but better. It's not a question of how much ice do I have to buy to pay for the cooler, but rather the security of knowing that purchasing ice isn't a daily necessity.

I have a Igloo 5-Day or something like that. Anyway that's not important. What IS important is I read somewhere about using a "blanket" on top of the ice.

I used the Igloo during a 4-day trip in Central Texas in July. It was outside the whole time but in the shade. This was the cooler we kept our drinks in & I & 3 teen boys kept it opened up plenty. Temps were high 90's during the day & mid-70s at night.

Started with 3 bags of ice & about 30 cans/bottles of pop/water. I bought one of those accordion silver auto shades & cut it to fit tightly inside the cooler. We kept it pushed down on the ice & pop. We had to add warm pop as we drank the cold & added 1 more bag of ice on the 3rd day (morning).

When we got home on the 5th day we still had ice/cold water in the cooler. I will use the "blanket" from now on.

During our weekending boating days going to get more ice was not an option. Every weekend was the equivelant to a RV boondocking weekend as far as utilities & services went.

The boat had 2 small fridges but we seldom used them. Could not see the point in putting cold food in a hot fridge which was off all week.

Food was put into the food cooler frozen, along with 2 or 3 1/2gal block ice. The food cooler stayed below deck. Drink coolers, 1 for the beer the other everything else, each had 3 1/2gal ice blocks. Drinking water went onboard in a frozen state. When possible the drink coolers were consolodated down to 1 cooler.

As suggested, a towel, prefferably wet, inside ontop of whatever, helps to preserve cold. Also, know what you want before opening the cooler. No shopping.

Another tip for keeping ice in the ice chest while camping: fill your cooler, stock with ice and then pour salt over the ice. I don't know why salt melts ice on your sidewalk and not in your cooler. But I know that years ago, when I filled the salad bar at the local restaurant, I iced around the containers and then salted the ice. It kept the ice from melting and in fact, fused the cubes together. This is what we do, especially when we go to the ocean dock and buy hundreds of pounds of tuna or salmon and need to transport them home several hours.

Travel in bear country?

Popular Mechanics Bear-Proof Cooler Test

Interesting that the Yeti seemed to have the worst insulating properties.

Add salt to the water in the cooler in it will lower the freezing freezing point of the water and will help keep the ice a bit longer

Adding salt lowers the temperature and makes everything colder. But it won't make the ice last longer. Colder temperature in the cooler means a higher differential temperature to the outside and faster heat transfer to the inside.

I've never done it and wouldn't bother, but you could probably make ice last longer by covering everything in the cooler with a few inches of Ping-Pong balls. That would add a floating layer of insulation that's still pretty easy to reach (if not see) through. A few layers of big packing bubble would work too.

I got a very very good cooler at Costco. $99.99, Igloo brand, all white, and very very similar to the pricey Igloo Yukon brand. It is excellent. I start out with big blue ice packs, and ice frozen in 1/2 gallon milk jugs. After 3 days it is barely melted.

One that is a HUGE help is to cover the entire cooler with something like an old comforter, especially if it will be sitting in the sun.