Finally, we love the smooth-operating zipper that requires minimal force to open (not always the case with watertight designs), provides a reliable seal, and is easy to realign if it separates. All told, the Day Escape’s sleek but well-rounded design was quick to win us over, earning it our endorsement as the best backpack cooler of the year. As we’ve covered igloo water cooler above, soft coolers are far easier to haul around than their hard-sided counterparts. In addition to weighing less, most come with padded straps and thick grab handles for carrying solo over your shoulder or by hand. Premium models tend to have great cushioning along the straps, as evidenced by RovR’s TravelR 30, RTIC’s Soft Pack Cooler, and Engel’s HD30.
That’s where the Realtree group comes in, as you’ll be able to choose between the Tactical Duffel, Gizmo, Square 30, Launch 2 Go and HLC 12 Cooler Bags. Users have three color options for this igloo soft cooler ice bag, which include charcoal and acid green, black and blaze red, and black and agama teal. Do you have a vacation in the outdoors coming up and have plans for afternoons on the lake?
In most situations, the best way to utilize dry ice is to place it at the bottom of your cooler, wrapped in newspaper. A soft cooler on wheels can be easier to transport than one with only handles. It isn’t good for all- or multi-day use, but type type of cooler is sufficient enough for a half-day trip.
External Attachment Points
Many soft coolers, including YETI’s Hopper Flip 12 and REI Co-op’s Cool Haul 24, have daisy chain webbing along the outside for securing extra gear. In use, we’ve found this area useful for keeping valuables like keys close at hand (we use a carabiner to attach them). And we particularly like the stretchy bungee system on the Arctic Zone Titan Deep Freeze, which makes it easy to secure a lightweight jacket or small towel on top.
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. Yeti claims the Hopper BackFlip 24 can hold 20 cans at a two to one ice ratio. And while our testers said the space inside the cooler didn’t feel as big as it should be because of the outside size, it fit securely and comfortably to their backs, especially compared to smaller coolers we tested.