Morning all,

I’m looking for a decent ambient cool box for off grid trips and have come across Igloo which seem to be just the ticket. Specifically I’m looking at either the Profile 54 QT or the Latitude 52 Is anyone here using either of these or have experience with something similar? As daft a question as it might sound will they work as effectively with ice blocks or are you best using ice?

Cheers 🙂

We bought an older Igloo about 15 years ago that looks very similar to the Latitude 52 (although ours has something like 108 can capacity!). Superb. Use it solely with ice packs, the slab-type packs that are fooking huge. Usually have 4 of those in it at a time, with another 4 on rotation from the freezer when we’re camping. Can happily last weeks like that. Recommended.

If we’re totally off-grid without access to refreezing, we’ve found using 6 ice packs or so and starting with chilled food it’ll happily last 4-5 nights and still be reasonably cold at the end.

Perfect, that’s just what I wanted to hear! Now on the subject of ice packs, are you aware of any difference in quality between say supermarket own and branded i.e. Thermos?

I bought an Igloo IMX24 Heavy duty box a while back and I’ve been pleased with the product.

The build quality isn’t the greatest, the top is slightly bowed compared with the base but this doesn’t seem to effect the performance. A couple of times I haven’t completely filled the box and this has effected performance but when the box is full it has lasted for days. It’s very robust but a bit awkward to carry long distances. Overall I’d recommend it.

Good deal on the Outwell fulmar, which my mate has and I can vouch for it’s build quality and insulating. 3 days camping and still ice in it

Outwell Fulmar 30L Coolbox

Surely every STW off gridder worth his/her salt has a Yeti cooler?

TUNDRA 65 COOL BOX

Available in colours to match your Santa Cruz…

Well I picked up an Igloo Latitude 52 from my local Cotswold, for £58 after a £12 Blue Light discount, and put in the already frozen 5 freezer packs already from home plus two bags of ice from the supermarket. That was Friday morning after starting this thread and I can report there is still some ice in the bags and a bit also on the packs. Overall very impressed and feel confident this will suffice for a 4 day off grid trip I have planned for the summer.

These are standard issue in Australia (called an Esky) if you don’t have a car fridge. Since our Waeco died (ok, i killed it), we’ve been using one again. Top tip is to collect screw top containers that you can freeze drinking water in so you’re cooling the space with something that’s useful but doesn’t leak everywhere. Once it’s defrosted you can drink it and refill when you next access a freezer. Lots of campsites etc are happy to let you use re-freeze.

Anyone got a recommendation for one of those coolboxes that you can run off 240 or 12v?

Halfords do ones that run off a 12v socket, we had one, worked fine for about a year, then packed up.
So, I’d recommend not buying one from halfords.

That’s interesting as my brother has a large one of those and says it’s very good. I’d prefer not to buy a Halfords one.

Tbf, ours worked absolutely fine, until it didn’t.

We’ve had an Electrolux camping fridge for about 15 years. It spent most of its time as a beer fridge (in the garage) running on 240v.

When we were camping, we ran it off the same gas bottle as the stove, swapped the pipes over whilst cooking. It’ll run on 12v, but we never bothered.

It still works, but it lives in the shed, these days, only getting used when the dear wife decides to have a do.

Now Dometic branded, and much more spendy nowadays.

DOMETIC CombiCool RC 1200 3-Way Portable Absorption Coolbox, 12 V/230 V and Gas, Silver, Mini Fridge 40 Litre https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004M8BRW6/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_RQ77P7CH253RMPYRGGF3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1