Insulation thickness and lid discipline, not the litre figure
This site covers cool boxes that carry their own cold — rigid passive boxes and soft insulated bags — and not the powered ones. A compressor or thermoelectric box is wired to a vehicle battery: it is an appliance of the car rather than of the camp, it is heavy, and its model numbers change from one country to the next. What is left is decided by three things and almost never by the headline litres. Insulation type and thickness comes first: a rigid box with thick foam walls and a rigid soft bag with a thin foil liner both quote a capacity, and they are not the same product. Second, the ice retention figure makers publish in hours or days — always measured with their own fill ratio, their own ambient temperature and a lid that stays shut. Read those conditions or the number means nothing, and treat a figure quoted without them as unquoted. Third, the seal: a zip, a roll-top or a gasketed lid, and whether it is the part that fails first. Capacity is quoted in litres, and a litre of stated volume is not a litre of bottles — check the internal depth against the tallest thing you carry, because a box that will not stand a 1.5 litre bottle upright wastes the space it claims. Then the details that decide the trip: a drain you can reach, a liner that wipes out, carry handles or a strap that survive being full, and the empty weight before any ice goes in. We compare box type, stated capacity in litres, insulation type and thickness, published ice retention with its stated conditions, closure and seal type, drain, carry arrangement, and empty weight.
Soft folding bag · 33 litres stated · about 45 × 25 × 29 cm · 14 h cooling stated · shoulder strap · no insulation named
The largest stated capacity in this hub at 33 litres, with a 14 hour cooling figure and no word anywhere about what the insulation is made of.
Best for: A family picnic where volume and a shoulder strap matter more than the construction behind the cooling figure.
≈ 14 €
Soft folding basket · 38 × 24 × 25 cm open · heat-sealed lining · zip closure · 30 kg stated load · no litre figure published
A folding insulated shopping basket with an aluminium frame and a stated 30 kg load, and the only listing in this hub that publishes no capacity in litres at all.
Best for: Carrying a full shop from car to table, where the frame and the handles do more work than the cooling does.
≈ 20 €
Soft folding bag · 30 litres in the title, lunch bag in the bullets · over 12 h stated · isothermal lining, unnamed · no closure described
A folding cool bag whose title says 30 litres and whose bullets describe an office lunch bag five times over — the two halves of the listing do not agree, and this page reports both.
Best for: A packed lunch rather than a picnic, on the reading of this listing that its own bullets support.
≈ 25 €
Rigid passive box · 22 litres · 27.5 × 44.5 × 38.3 cm · four 450 ml ice packs built into the lid · 40 h cold and 18 h warm stated · PU/PP
The longest cooling figure published in this hub at 40 hours, and the listing itself says the number rests on the four ice packs built into its lid.
Best for: A weekend where the box is packed once and opened rarely, and the ice packs are frozen properly beforehand.
≈ 60 €
Soft folding bag · 30 litres stated · five-layer PEVA-coated insulation · 24+ h stated · waterproof zips · backpack, shoulder or hand carry
A 30 litre folding bag carried three ways, with a five-layer PEVA-coated insulation, waterproof zips and a stated 24-plus hours behind no conditions at all.
Best for: Carrying a full load to a spot you have to walk to, where hands-free matters and the exact hours do not.
≈ 20 €
Rigid passive box · 20 litres · 45 × 30 × 29 cm outside and 41 × 26 × 26 cm inside · Styrofoam in a washable plastic shell · 1.3 kg stated · shoulder strap
The only box in this hub that publishes an empty weight, and the only one to publish inside and outside dimensions together — 1.3 kg, 20 litres of rigid Styrofoam.
Best for: A beach day or a car trip where a light, wipe-clean rigid box on a shoulder strap beats a soft bag.
≈ 41 €
Soft folding bag · 30 litres stated · aluminium foil over 8 mm EPE foam · 1680D Oxford shell · 40.5 × 26.5 × 31 cm · zip · shoulder strap
The only bag in this hub to publish an insulation thickness — 8 mm of EPE foam under an aluminium liner — and it publishes no retention figure at all.
Best for: Anyone who wants to know what the insulation actually is before they buy, rather than how many hours a marketing line claims.
≈ £25 / 23 €
Soft folding bag · 30 litres stated · IsoTec insulation named, not described · tight-closing zips · external mesh pockets · no hours published
A 30 litre folding bag with a named insulation system and tight-closing zips, and not one hour of retention published behind either.
Best for: A shopping run or a car picnic where the zips and the pockets do the work and the hours are not being counted.
≈ £35 / 30 €
Rigid passive box on wheels · 30 litres · telescopic trolley handle · two ice packs held in the lid · tight-closing lid · no hours published
A 30 litre passive box on wheels with a trolley handle and two lid-mounted ice packs, whose only stated cooling condition is the phrase "typical summer conditions".
Best for: A campsite pitch or a beach you can wheel to, where 30 litres never has to be lifted far.
≈ 80 €
This family belongs to the cooking and water kit — see everything that has to work with it.
Prices in these summaries were read on the dates each review gives. The live figure sits beside every product.
