High End Cooler: Yeti, Pelican, or ???

[Fire Instructor]

Good morning, Folks!

Considering the purchase of a "high-end" cooler. Primary function will be for beverages, but would also be used for other items. Considering the Yeti Marine Ice Chest - Camping Coolers - YETI Tundra Cooler | YETI Coolers, the Pelican Pelican 65 Quart Cooler - PelicanCases.com, or maybe others that are out there....

Anyone have experience with the Yeti, the Pelican, or any of the other high-end coolers that are out there?

[clancythecamper]

Hmmm, it will be interesting to see the responses on here Being in a tropical climate, I learned a long time ago that purchasing an inexpensive, small fridge (30") for keeping drinks outside our camper is the way to go. One Memorial Day weekend we went through 16 bags of ice! Heck, I only paid $30 for a 2nd hand fridge. It also keeps the snack/beverage seekers out of my main food storage area. We have not done dry camping, so I understand that would be different (power source, etc)

[Fire Instructor]

Originally Posted by clancythecamper

Being in a tropical climate, I learned a long time ago that purchasing an inexpensive, small fridge (30") for keeping drinks outside our camper is the way to go.

You are right. I probably should have qualified my question by mentioning that it is primarily for dry-camping, where either an ice purchasing trip is at least a 45 minute round trip, or it's at a NA$CAR race where ice tends to be VERY overpriced. More for the conveniece of not having to fool with a daily or every two day ice purchase...

[Horns07]

If you get on YouTube and search" sportsman guide cooler test" they test a lot of high end coolers and a couple cheapys the Coleman extreme hold ice longer than the yeti and you can get it at wal mart for around 50 dollars.

[garbonz]

I have a Yeti purchased at discount from an offer on one of the other forums (duramax, I think). It is the nicest cooler I have EVER seen, and works well. Prob not worth the money tho. I defer to others on comparisons.

I have often thought about building an insulated cooler cooler that would work for extended dry camping.

I participate in a 10 day event in South Dakota (tents,etc. and, no power at all) and we have a 4ft square 4 inch thick cooler cooler that works incredibly well holding up to about 6 coolers of stuff.

Just an idea.

[garbonz]

From practical sailer.

Ice chests come in all shapes and sizes. And often times, sailors and fishermen will prefer keeping a large cooler aboard to installing a marine refrigeration system. So for this test, we narrowed the field to portable 65-quart coolers and a 70-quart cooler from Yeti, Engel, and Coleman. The three test products were the Engel ENG65, Yeti Tundra, and the Coleman Ultimate Extreme Marine. Testers compared the effectiveness of each cooler at keeping ice during a meltdown test: A six-pack of soda was covered with 16 pounds of ice and checked at 12-hour intervals. The top performer was the Engel, but testers deemed the Coleman a bargain as it was less than half the cost of the others.