This Collapsible Hard Cooler Is the Smartest Small-Space Outdoor Find

When it’s warm and sunny out — which is going to happen soon, I swear! — there’s nothing nicer than spending all day outside. Parks and beaches are some of the most pleasant places to pass the time, and if you’re in it for the long haul, you’ll want to bring food and drinks. Those sandwiches and seltzers may look great in the morning, but if you don’t have a good cooler, they’ll be limp and lukewarm by the afternoon. But while a good cooler is important, storing it after you’ve used it, in a small space like I have, is a real issue. Fortunately, I came across a game-changer: This unique collapsible cooler.

I discovered the convenient gem that is the Coleman Snap ‘N Go Collapsible Hard Cooler through an Instagram video by Teresa Laura Caruso. To showcase the cooler’s unique design and spacious capacity, she easily expands it to full size and fills it with ice, cans of root beer and strawberry vanilla Olipop soda, yogurt cups, and what appears to be slender reusable containers of food. 

Then, you see her remove the liner from the empty cooler and collapse it back down. “I love how instead of bringing a big empty cooler home from a day out or in the car for a trip you can collapse it down so it takes up hardly any space,” she writes in the caption, adding in the video that “the removable waterproof liner is great for easy cleanup.”

You can find the Snap ‘N Go Cooler at REI (where it’s categorized as a top-rated product) for $200. It comes in sapphire blue or mussel black, and measures 22.6 inches long, 12 inches deep, and either 12.2 or 4.5 inches tall, depending on if it’s collapsed or not. It holds up to 35 quarts, or roughly 64 cans, and it weighs 14 pounds unfilled.

Honestly, it’s hard to think of a reason to dislike this cooler. I’m not usually the one bringing a cooler to outdoor outings because I don’t have room in my modest NYC apartment for bulky coolers and I don’t have a car. While this collapsible cooler doesn’t magically become easy to carry when it’s full, it’s substantially easier to wrangle when it’s empty, and you can fold it down into a handy little rectangle and put it in the back of a closet or a kitchen cabinet when not in use. 

“I was interested but wary of the idea of a collapsible cooler, but let me tell you what, I was blown away when I opened the box,” reviewer HilaryC writes on REI’s site. “This thing is going to be SO much easier to clean than normal coolers are.” Reviewer KatieS says the cooler is “a great size for our family of 4 to fill up and camp a few days. The handles make it easy to carry and are very comfortable.” And sure, the price is a bit high, but REI sells several other brands of hard coolers in similar sizes that cost the same or higher — but those don’t fold up at all.

Buy: Coleman Snap ‘N Go Collapsible Hard Cooler, $200