This is due to its center ice holder, which closely resembles a hotel room ice box. This caddy is ideal for situations where quick access is preferred, like the kid’s soccer game or a backyard barbeque. With four storage compartments, you can create a fun party tray, with snacks in one and drinks in the others. It’s also built with rugged materials, so you can trust that a few drops won’t cause much damage, though you might lose a snack or two. Aside from being colder than ice, the biggest advantage to dry ice is that, as it warms up, it evaporates, instead of melting. So, if you were chilling a gallon of milk, you’d use two gallons of ice to keep it cool.
We took the aesthetic Fishpond Blizzard Soft Cooler ($100) out fly fishing with two anglers. The compact cooler was full of brews, sparkling igloo water cooler water, and lunch food. We really liked the touch of the side rope handles — they’re smooth, tough, and easy to grab and hold.
Our major gripe with the Hydro Flask soft cooler is that it’s less comfortable to carry for long periods of time. The shoulder strap is fine, but the handles are on the thin side and lack padding. This soft cooler has a grab handle and an adjustable shoulder strap that won’t dig into your skin. It’s also handily collapsible, so you can pack it in a suitcase or stuff it in a backpack and easily store it when it’s not in use.
The Arctic Zone Titan Deep Freeze 30 offers great utility for a steal. Despite having some of the thinnest insulation of any model we tested, it maintained recommended food temperatures for a little over two days, which was right around the group average. The zipperless design for the main compartment makes it completely painless to use, and the hard plastic interior makes it simple to pack. A removable plastic shelf adds functionality, igloo water cooler keeping sensitive items out of melted ice, and numerous pockets adorn the outside for wine corkscrews, napkins, and silverware. Durability varies considerably between soft coolers, and a good way to differentiate between models is to look at denier (D), which is a measurement of fabric thickness. RovR’s TravelR 30 is another standout in terms of durability with a burly TPU base and welded seams that give it a very hardwearing feel.
We also measured for cold and ice retention by taking the inside temperature of each cooler at two hours after filling them with cans and ice and then 24 hours after filling them with cans and ice. While it’s easy to get caught up in wanting the best, being realistic about using your soft cooler can help you choose one that works for your intended uses. Coolers have come a long way since glorified bags that offer a few hours of chilling, but that now-quaint level of performance may be all you need. Soft cooler totes are long, slender, and streamlined against your side. However, taller coolers get trickier with access to buried items, so you have to be mindful when packing the cooler.
With corners that unclip, the top conveniently opens further to allow quick loading and locating of contents. On top of that, this is one of the largest coolers we tested, fitting an impressive 48 cans, making it a solid contender to guard your food and drink for a long weekend of camping. Despite its bulky size, the Engel is more portable than we expected, featuring an easy two-person carry using the end handles. After many years, its durable construction has proven worth the investment, with consistent performance, unchanged over time, and even looking like we bought it last week. Before diving into the finer details, it’s important to point out that soft coolers come with some inherent compromises. Unlike hard-sided models that can keep food and beverages cold for days (or even weeks) on end, soft models aren’t built to keep contents cold for more than a few days at maximum.