Lifewit Cooler Bag vs a Hard Cooler

Two hours before kickoff I am standing at the open back of the Tahoe with a grocery sack in each hand, deciding what goes in the cooler. The tailgate is down, the chairs are already stacked against the wheel well, and Renee is usually still inside finishing her coffee. I have made that decision the same way for 38 months, ever since the Lifewit collapsible cooler bag took the place of the hard cooler that used to ride back there. The neighbors are already backing out of their driveway. It is not a small decision, either. We drive to 6 to 8 road games a season, we pack food at home, and whatever I load has to survive a morning in a parking lot and still be worth eating when we walk back out to the truck.

The short answer: for a car trip to a game, the Lifewit bag is the better fit for us, and it is not close. It carries on one shoulder, it sits behind the second row without swallowing the whole back of the truck, and between trips it folds flat onto a shelf in the hall closet. A hard cooler holds ice longer and gives you a dry place to sit in a gravel lot, and I will not pretend otherwise. Which one belongs in your truck comes down to two things, how far you have to carry it and whether you want to look at it in your garage for the next ten years.

	Lifewit cooler bag	Hard cooler
Cold retention	Frozen bottles and ice packs keep food cold for the drive and through a tailgate. No hour claim from me.	Keeps ice longer into a hot afternoon. On this one it wins.
Carrying it	Shoulder strap. I load it in the kitchen and walk it out with one hand.	Two hands and a grunt once it is loaded. Heavy for two people in their sixties.
Room in the truck	15.7 x 10.6 x 12.2 inches. Slides behind the second row with the duffel still in.	Wants its own corner. You plan the rest of the load around it.
Storage at home	Collapses flat onto the closet shelf with the rest of the game day gear.	Too big for the shelf. Lives in the garage.
Standing up to a gravel lot	600D Oxford outer and a PEVA liner, but it is a bag. It does not shrug off a drop.	Hard sided. Gets dragged, kicked and rained on and does not care.
Somewhere to sit	No. It slumps, and it will not hold you.	Yes. A dry seat in a wet lot.
Capacity	30 liters, the 50 can size. Enough for two people for a full day.	More room, if you are feeding more than two.
Best for	The drive, the parking lot and the tailgate.	A long hot day where the cooler stays put.

How I Ended Up With Both

The hard cooler came first. It was the one that went to the lake and on fishing trips, and for years it was the only cooler in the family. When we started driving to road games it went in the back of the Tahoe because it was already there. By the second season I was tired of it. It ate most of the cargo floor behind the second row, and two people in their sixties lifting a loaded cooler out of a truck and carrying it forty yards is a chore neither of us needed. Loading it was not the problem. Unloading it was. The season I finally quit on it, I had started leaving it in the truck overnight before an early drive just so I would not have to lift it out of the garage and back in again in the dark.

So 38 months ago I bought the Lifewit bag. The plan was to use it for games and keep the hard cooler for fishing, which is exactly what happened. The hard cooler still lives in the garage. The bag lives on the closet shelf when it is empty and behind the second row when it is not. About 20 road trips later, the bag is still the one that goes in the truck every time, and I have not once wished I had hauled the heavy one instead. That count of twenty is off the top of my head, not a log in a notebook. Some seasons we drove to six road games and some to eight, and the bag went on every one of them plus a handful of Saturdays that had nothing to do with football at all.

One thing I want to be clear about, because I have read enough of these to be suspicious: the bag is not tougher than a hard cooler. It is not supposed to be. It is a soft sided bag with a 600D Oxford outer and a PEVA liner, and it does a soft sided bag's job. If I dropped a loaded hard cooler off the tailgate it would shrug it off. If I dropped this bag, I would pick it up and check the sandwiches.

Where the Lifewit Cooler Bag Wins

Carrying is the first one, and it is the reason I switched. The bag has a shoulder strap, and it is light when it is empty, so I load it on the kitchen counter where the light is good and the counter is the right height, then walk it out through the garage and set it behind the second row in one motion. Filled for a two person game day it is still a one person lift. The hard cooler is a two person lift when it is loaded, and at 61 years old I am not looking for reasons to carry anything heavy. Renee carries this bag too, which matters on the mornings I am folding chairs and she is ready before I am.

Room is the second. The bag measures 15.7 by 10.6 by 12.2 inches and holds 30 liters, which is the 50 can size. That slides in behind the second row with the duffel and the chairs still in the truck. We take a duffel, two folding chairs and a small box of dry goods on a normal trip. With the hard cooler back there, one of those chairs had to ride on the back seat. With the bag, all of it fits behind the second row and the back seat stays clear for the things we do not want sliding around. The bag fits wherever there is a gap, and when it comes home half empty it slumps down instead of standing there taking up floor.

Storage is the third, and it is the one Renee cares about. The bag collapses, so it goes flat on the shelf in the hall closet with everything else we take to a game. All five of our game day items live on that one shelf. Folded down it is about the thickness of a folded beach towel, and I do not measure it, I just know it slides in next to the other bags without a fight. The hard cooler is too big for that shelf and stays in the garage, which means the one thing that needs to be clean and ready is stored furthest from the kitchen.

Where a Hard Cooler Wins

Cold is the honest one. On a hot afternoon a hard cooler will keep ice longer than any soft bag, mine included, and if the cooler is going to sit in the sun from noon until dinner, the hard cooler is the right tool for that job. Our bag keeps food cold for the drive and through a tailgate. I am not going to hand you a number of hours, because I have never timed it and the answer changes with how much ice went in and how hot the pavement is. The afternoon I thought about the old cooler was a September game with no shade anywhere in that lot. The drinks were still cold when we walked back, and I would not swear to the last sandwich.

Sitting is the other. In a gravel lot a hard cooler gives you a dry seat at a reasonable height, and that is worth something when the ground is wet. The bag is not a seat. Sit on it and you will crush what is inside, and it will not hold you anyway. A hard cooler also wins on plain abuse. It gets dragged, kicked, rained on and left out, and it does not care. The bag needs a little more care. On a humid morning the outside of it comes up wet, so I set it on a rubber mat in the back of the truck and I would not set it straight down on a cloth seat without thinking about it first.

Thirty-eight months, about 20 road trips, one bag, and it is still the thing I reach for on a Saturday morning.

What I Pack and How I Pack It

I pack the night before, usually around eight, after the dishes are done. Four frozen water bottles go in first, laid flat on the bottom, then two ice packs tucked down the sides, then the food. Sandwiches, a bag of grapes, a couple of apples, water and soft drinks for the drive and for the parking lot. Nothing fancy. We eat in the lot because it is faster than fighting a concourse line and because the food in there is not worth the walk. The frozen bottles do double duty, keeping everything cold on the way and being cold water by the time we are standing around the truck with an hour still to kill.

The two mesh pockets on the sides take a bottle each, or an umbrella if the forecast is ugly, which it is about a third of the time in the fall. That sounds like a small thing until you have put a wet umbrella in with the sandwiches. When we get to the lot the bag comes out and sits on the tailgate or on the ground next to a chair. When we walk to the gate it goes back in the truck and the tailgate comes down. It has never gone past the parking lot and I have never tried to take it in.

Who Should Buy Which

Buy the Lifewit bag if you drive to games, park in a lot, walk a distance to the gate, and pack for two people. Buy it if your truck is also the family truck and you need the cargo space back for a duffel and a set of chairs. Buy it if you are the one who carries the cooler and you would rather use one hand. That covers most people who do what we do, and it is why the hard cooler has been in the garage for the last three years.

Stay with a hard cooler if the cooler mostly stays in one spot all day, if you tailgate with a crowd and need the volume, or if you want something to sit on and something that shrugs off being dragged across gravel. If you fish, or if you camp in real heat, keep the hard cooler and do not overthink it. We did not get rid of ours. It has a job. It just is not the game day job anymore.

Before You Pack Either One

One thing matters more than either cooler: whatever you pack stays in the truck. At every game we have been to, the cooler stays in the parking lot. Stadium rules differ and they change, so check the stadium's own website before you leave home, the same way we check on the clear bag and the seat. Many pro stadiums publish a 12 by 6 by 12 inch bag size, which is the size of our clear tote, and many of them do not allow a seat with a back. Many is the word. Not all. Look it up for the game you are actually going to, not the one you went to last year.