According to the brand, this cooler backpack can keep food and beverages cold for up to 16 hours. It fits 36 cans at a time, and the side pockets can fit a bottle of wine. When the outdoors beckon, this rugged cooler has a bold, sturdy construction with best-in-category coleman screen tent cooling performance that’ll keep you and your small crew happy for days. On multi-day trips where restocking ice isn’t an option, or when your camp cooking involves raw meat or other highly perishable ingredients, keeping your cooler at a safe temperature is crucial.
We test the insulation performance, durability, ease of use, portability, and features of every single model. As some performance aspects are more important than others, we weigh each metric accordingly. Below, we discuss our test results and which models stand out in each area.
Note that RTIC coolers are not IGBC (International Grizzly Bear Committee) certified. If that’s necessary for you, here’s IGBC’s list of certified bear-resistant products (PDF). Don’t worry about the heavy lifting with this extra-large cooler that takes away 50% of the effort with its specially designed telescoping handle. This coleman ice chest bright pink cooler is the perfect size to carry a lunch to work or the great outdoors. Other features, like a fish ruler or molded drink holders, may be useful for specific situations. We’ve found that for most weekend warriors, 60 liters is the sweet spot that allows plenty of room for food and drinks for two to three people.
This cooler feels like you can roll it across anything without the handle straining or bending, or the wheels breaking. We previously noted that Yeti had suspended sales of our backpack pick, the Hopper M20, due to a potential safety issue with the closure, which could fail, releasing magnets, which would be dangerous to ingest. We’ve removed that pick and are continuing to monitor the situation. If you want a backpack cooler, we recommend the Polar Bear Original Nylon Backpack Cooler.
Ease of use is a critical factor in your overall happiness with any given product. We gauged how easy each cooler was to open and close — whether or not the lid fully shut after closing, latch maneuverability, coleman screen tent ease of loading, capacity, and if it included any convenient features like dry bins. The 50ºF threshold we highlight represents the average maximum ideal temperature to serve beer.