Living in Hawaii, I spend a remarkable amount of time negotiating with the sun.
Every grocery errand, beach trip, and lunch run, requires some kind of cooler if I want any hope of returning home without spoiled milk. And with my recent catering side gig, I’ve needed a cooler that can keep food fresh for hours as I traverse the fickle traffic patterns of Oahu’s north shore. Thankfully, I have found a trusted sidekick in the RTIC Ultra-Light cooler, which is now our pick for best hard cooler in our guide to the best coolers.
As I hauled dinners through the beating sun from Waialua to Laie, it occurred to me that the cooler giants of yesteryear are fading. In retrospect, the signs were obvious.
Brands like Igloo and Coleman, who popularized the personal cooler in the mid-50’s, have been in decline for nearly two decades now (though both brands still make coolers we recommend in our guide).
It’s not an unfamiliar cycle: a trusted legacy brand defines an era and then slowly, sometimes subtly, makes compromises to their designs, shaving away pennies in expense and fractions in performance until there’s no more hiding the truth; that things no longer work like they used to.
Age, it seems, can diminish the abilities of any leader.
Our pick
Better insulated and less expensive than the competition, this hard cooler keeps things ice cold for five days, and well-designed drain ports make it easy to clean.
