Best Small Coolers of 2025

There are plenty of trips for which your heavy-duty camping cooler is overkill, and investing in a small cooler can help save precious cargo space in your car. But your needs for an all-day outing to the beach compared to a weekend-warrior style overnight stay at a dispersed campsite can vary considerably. After testing fifteen of the most popular models from well-known brands, and scoring them on a number of criteria, I’ve identified the best small coolers. 

Best Small Coolers: Reviews & Recommendations

Best Overall: Igloo Legacy 20 QT Cooler

The Igloo Legacy 20 QT Cooler knocked the competition out of the water. Its latching mechanism is a dead simple twist to open and close. It has one handle — not faffing about with endless straps and pockets and bottle openers — but that one handle is very comfortable to use. Its shape is also such that it doesn’t knock against your legs while you’re walking, making it a comfortable carry. And it took a 7-pound bag of ice almost three days to melt, a better result than just about any small cooler I tested. The only real downside is that steel doesn’t pack down at all. 

But more than anything else, I just really liked the aesthetic of this small cooler. It looks great and it’s a joy to use. This one will be staying in my personal rotation. 

Best Soft Cooler: ORCA Wanderer Tote

This cooler impressed me on just about every single metric. It was dead easy to use, with one of the easiest and most secure latching systems of any cooler I’ve tested. There aren’t many coolers that I think children can be trusted to open and latch again successfully, but this is one of them. When fully sealed, this one is also waterproof. So when one of those kids inevitably knocks it over, you don’t have to worry about icy water leaking everywhere. 

Read Next: The Best Soft Coolers

But where the Orca Wanderer Tote really shone was in my ice retention test. It took two and a half days for 7 pounds of ice to melt (all testing was completed at room temperature). That means that in addition to being a great cooler for beach outings or summer picnics, you could also use it in a pinch to keep the essentials cool while camping for the weekend. 

Best Backpack: Hydro Flask Day Escape

Most backpack coolers are so uncomfortable to carry that just getting from your car to an empty spot on the beach is going to feel like an ordeal. One bright spot in this field is the HydroFlask Day Escape. While it’s not in the league of the best hiking backpacks, this one is comfortable to carry some beers for your friends up to a mountain lake. (And if you happen to drop it into the lake, know that it is also waterproof.) The main difference between this one and other backpack coolers is that it’s wider and shallower, which helps to distribute the weight across your torso more evenly. I also found that this one had the right level of structure, with some padding against your back so that you don’t feel a can poking you, but are still soft enough to allow for easy range of movement. The only ding on the backpack front is the lack of a hip belt, which means you can’t secure the weight against your waist. 

Read Next: The Best Backpack Coolers

Unlike most of the small coolers I’ve tested, the Hydro Flask Day Escape is also a pretty great cooler. It held ice at room temperature for over a day and a half, plenty of time to finish out a relaxing day or even a sufferfest. Just save some arm muscles because the zipper is tricky to open and close completely.

Most Packable: Monti Shasta

I was surprised by how much I ended up liking this very packable cooler. If you’re tight on space — whether in your home or in your adventure vehicle — this one is a must-have. It stuffs down to the size of a Nalgene, but when fully poofed out, it can retain a bag of ice for as long as two days. I especially liked that the design incorporated a roll-top, which allows you to squeeze excess out of the cooler before you hop in the car, increasing the lifespan of the ice. That zipper is also totally waterproof. These kinds of thoughtful details really help the Monti Shasta to stand out from the crowd. 

Because of its unusual design, the Monti Shasta is also prone to condensation. This isn’t a real issue, as it’s not a true leak, but just be aware to not put it on anything that needs to stay dry. Otherwise you don’t need to worry about it. 

The lack of structure with this cooler means you probably don’t want to haul it very far. Also depending on what you’re putting into it, it’s possible you’ll feel some sharp edges through the soft material. his small cooler doesn’t have the structure of the other options in this story. It sits upright just fine, but will be more prone to tipping. 

Best Wheeled: Titan 60 Can Wheeled Cooler

The provided weight for these coolers is a little misleading: Add enough ice and seltzers and they are all heavier than you’d like them to be. Which is why I appreciated seeing a smaller cooler with wheels on it. 

Read Next: The Best Coolers with Wheels

Keep your expectations limited on this one: The wheels aren’t on the par of something like a RovR RollR. But if all you need to do is get across the parking lot without doing in your back, this will more than get the job done. 

Best Budget: Bass Pro Shops Soft-Sided

For many people, a small cooler is an afterthought. They aren’t looking for the top performer, just something that’s good enough to keep their beers cold for a day at the beach while still leaving enough dollars in their pocket for said beer. If that sounds like you, then the Bass Pro Shops Soft-Sided Cooler is a great choice. For the price of three craft six-packs, you’ll get a cooler capable of keeping your ice cold all day and into tomorrow. My only ding here is the zipper is a royal pain to use, which may further limit its insulation capabilities when you finally give up on it. 

Dometic Patrol 20

The Dometic Patrol 20 looks as if someone took a regular-sized cooler and then shrunk it down until it was child-sized. There are some negatives to this — mainly that it’s pretty beefy, and thus heavy and awkward to carry even when completely empty. But the positives easily outweigh this con. Not only was the Dometic Patrol 20 one of the top performers for ice retention in my test, lasting well over 48 hours in the August heat, but it also had some of the easiest-to-use latches in my test. If you’re looking for something smaller than a traditionally sized cooler to pack up your perishables for a long weekend camping then this is a smart choice. 

Brumate MagPack

The Brumate MagPack was a case where great performance doesn’t always translate to the best cooler. While this one scored very high on my ice-retention test — just squeaking out my best overall pick — and proved very waterproof, there are some issues with this cooler to be aware of.

The biggest issue here is the latch. It turned out that simply confidently closing this small cooler wasn’t enough — you had to really slam down on it to get the latch to click. The biggest issue with this is, of course, that you (or more likely, the people you are with) will forget to do it. That makes the results on the ice retention test a little more theoretical than I would like. 

While the Brumate MagPack used to be on the pricey side, it’s come more in line with other backpack coolers as of 2025. And, as a backpack cooler, it is quite comfortable to carry for short distances. 

Yeti Hopper M20

Yeti consistently makes some of the best and priciest gear in every category they touch, whether it’s camping chairs, wheeled coolers, camping blankets, and more. If money is no object, then ninety-nine times out of one hundred, you should just buy the Yeti.

The Yeti Hopper M20 is definitely one of those ninety-nine times. This backpack cooler has good insulation, is very waterproof, and had the best latching system of anything I looked at. In addition to having a roll-top seal with buckle for travel, there are also magnets in the lid that snap together in place for more casual outings. That means that even your laziest friend can be bothered to seal this cooler after pulling a brew out, ensuring that everything stays cold for the entire day (or even two).

But you get what you pay for, and in this instance you’ll be paying a lot (fortunately it has a great warranty). This one is $100 more than my best overall pick.

Orca 20 Quart

If you find the Orca 20 Quart on sale, it’s worth picking up, but otherwise you get better value and performance out of the similarly sized Dometic Patrol. In my testing, the latches on this one were considerably more difficult to use, requiring some hefty downward tugging that lazier members of your party probably won’t bother with. And while it took over two days for the ice to fully melt, it still lasted four hours less than its main rival. The only category where it outshined was in water resistance: This one is fully waterproof. 

Pelican 14QT Personal Cooler

Technically, the Pelican 14QT Personal Cooler had the best ice retention in my test, in part due to its small size: a 7-pound bag of ice nearly filled it to the brim. Which gives you a good sense of just how limited the space is in this cooler. If you need to keep something small chilled for three days, this is no doubt the cooler for you. (My guess is most people will want something larger.) But there were other details I appreciated about the Pelican 14QT Personal Cooler. The latches were easy to use. It was a nice shape for tucking away into small spaces in either your gear closet or your adventure vehicle. Note: This one does leak a little out the back. 

Engel HD20

The Engel HD20 boasts a unique approach to insulation, a valve that lets you suck the air out of the insulation using a conventional vacuum. Theoretically, this would improve the performance of the insulation by reducing the potential for temperature transfer between the outside and inside of the cooler. However, even following this unusual step, this cooler did not perform at the level of the others. While I appreciated its waterproof design, the zipper was somewhat difficult to use.

Titan Zipperless Cooler

The Titan Zipperless Cooler stood out from the competition in having no latching mechanism beyond a velcro tab. I thought that would spell disaster in the ice-melt test, but this cooler held its own, lasting over two days before a 7-pound bag of ice had fully melted. Impressive. In addition to its notably lower price point, the Titan Zipperless Cooler also had a few features that stood out, including storage pockets on the exterior and a tray on the interior to help keep small perishables elevated about melting ice water. Unsurprisingly, this one is not at all waterproof, so don’t let it tip over in the trunk of your car. 

Titan 25Q High Performance Roto Hard

If you’ve ever rooted around for something in a cooler as daylight wanes then one of the more unique features of the Titan 25Q High Performance Roto Hard will make perfect sense: a light that turns on when you open the cooler. 

But this one also impressed with its performance. A 7-pound bag of ice lasted about two and a half days, and its latches were easy enough to use that you can trust the other members of your party to actually use them. There are some downsides to this one, however. The biggest one is its price, nearly as much as some full-size coolers. It also lacks the interior space of the soft-sided coolers I tested. 

How I Tested the Best Small Coolers

One of the most important tests for small coolers is ice retention. To ensure as level a playing field as possible, I put one bag of store-bought ice into each of the coolers at the same time and then kept them in the same room. Whenever I checked the ice in one cooler to see if it had melted, I checked it in all of them. Next, I checked how watertight each cooler was, including at the drainage port (where applicable) and around the lid, by filling the cooler with water and then tipping it in a variety of directions.

I also screwed and unscrewed the drainage ports multiple times to get a feel for how waterproof (or lack thereof) each was — unloading your car only to find a puddle forming underneath your tent or sleeping bags is not an experience anyone wants to have. Finally, I looked at how difficult each latching system was to operate. 

I also considered the accessories provided with each cooler, how easy it was to transport or move, and the overall cost. Recommendations also took into account the size of each cooler, how easy they were to open and close, and whether they collapsed down after use (to better fit into a small or midsize car).

Things to Consider Before Buying One of the Best Small Coolers

Size and Capacity of the Best Small Coolers

If you’re looking for a small cooler, odds on are that it’s because you have limited car or storage space. Something to keep in mind, however, is that coolers with great insulation will just about always have less interior space relative to their packed size. Weigh the importance of long-term ice retention versus size and capacity when making a choice about the best small cooler for your needs.

Waterproof vs. Water-resistant for the Best Small Coolers

One of the biggest differentiators between the soft coolers in my test was their level of waterproofness. The RovR TravelR 30, RTIC Soft Pack 30, and Hydroflask Day Escape were all fully waterproof. No water escaped from the seams during the ice retention test, and no water leaked out the top or around the zipper when the cooler was flipped around while filled with water. As long as these three are fully zipped, you won’t need to worry about a cooler full of melted ice water tipping over in the back of your car. Of the hard-sided coolers, only the ORCA 20 Quart was fully waterproof. 

Latching Mechanism of the Best Small Coolers

Of course, the ice retention potential of even the best small coolers depends on the thing actually being closed. There was a wide range of quality in the latches I tested, with the cooler with the highest score for ice retention having one of the worst latches in my test. Take into consideration the care you are likely to take with your cooler when opening or closing it before making a final choice, including other members of your family. 

FAQs

Final Thoughts on the Best Small Coolers

After testing ten products from ten different brands, I determined that the best small cooler for most people is the Kula 2.5 (or Kula 5). Despite its unusual shape, it has excellent ice-retention capabilities and functioned well across a number of other criteria. If you’d prefer a more traditional design, the Dometic Patrol 20 is an excellent hard-sided option, while the RTIC Soft Pack 30 and OtterBox Trooper 20 also won top marks for affordability and versatility respectively.