12 Best Coolers for Van Camping
Top products in hard coolers, soft cooler, rolling coolers, large and small coolers Prices range from $27 to $399
Camping doesn’t mean you have to live on granola bars and peanut butter sandwiches alone. It is very rewarding to eat a delicious meal while you watch bison graze in grasslands in the valley below your epic camping location. A solid and reliable cooler will make the difference between surviving and thriving while camping.
Buying a cooler doesn’t need to be a hand-wringing, hair-pulling, painful experience, but it is important to do a little research. We are here to help with a few ideas on how to buy the right cooler for your freestyle camping needs.
The answer to keeping food cold while you are camping is dependent on a few of factors;
How big of a cooler do you need?
Even if you are camping in a smart car and have very little room to spare, you will be glad to have even a small cooler for essentials like meat, milk or eggs.
How long you want your ice to last?
Will you need ice for 3 days or 10 days? Typically the longer you want ice to last the more expensive your cooler will be. If you are camping at Walmart parking lots along your journey, you can easily change ice every few days. On the other hand, if you will be away from services for weeks at a time, it is worth getting a cooler with a high insulation rating. A solid well insulated cooler will also keep the smell of your food from wafting up the nose of a hungry curious grizzly bear. Have you seen a bear try to break into a yeti cooler?
How much of your budget will you spend?
A really good cooler is a big game changer for having a relaxing and luxurious camping experience. We recommend spending at the top of your budget for two reasons; premium ice retention and long-lasting product life. There are other places where you can save a dime. Since every budget is different, we will show coolers in a range of prices.
Best Coolers for Ice Retention
We are starting with the best performing coolers on the market, so we will also start this section with the best of the best performer. The YETI Tundra cooler is top of the line, boasts 10 day ice retention and bear proof design. This cooler will last you for decades of adventures. Put stickers all over it and let it remind you of great times.
The Orca Hard Cooler is another top of the line cooler for performance and durability. It may be less well known than Yeti, but its performance just as strong.
The Lifetime hard cooler has a similar style build to the popular high end brands like YETI and Pelican, but it is far more affordable. 
Best Small Coolers
For those of you camping in a smart car or traveling by bicycle, we will take a look at the best small coolers. Small is in the eye of the beholder, but 14 to 20 quarts is a nice size for a picnic. You can fit about 6 cans and sandwich fixings in a 14 quart cooler.
Best Soft Coolers
Soft coolers are perfect for day trips or short overnight trips. They wont keep ice frozen for days at a time, but they are lighter than hard coolers and much easier to handle. We use our soft cooler for boating trips, picnics and bringing cold beer and ice cream to our friends for BBQs.
The AO cooler has fantastic ice retention and is at a great price point. It is light weight and comes in four sizes; 12 cans, 24 cans, 36 cans and 48 cans.
The RTIC soft coolers have a handful of advantages; they promise leak proof, lightweight, high quality performance. They also have anti-microbial lining to prevent bacteria and odor.
Best Rolling Coolers
Just about every well known cooler brand has a version with wheels. If you come to the conclusion you want a Pelican or an Ora or a Yeti, but also want a cooler with wheels, chances are you will find one. If you are not concerned with brand, these are three coolers in different price points we have read great things about.
Coleman is a name you can trust in affordable camping supplies, but can you trust its quality? In the case for this cooler, you can. It boasts, keeping ice for 5 days in 90 degree weather. It doubles as a table and a bench. It is also the cooler my dad has used for the last 10 years.
