The personal cooler was a mainstay in modern society when I was growing up. My dad took an Igloo Playmate with him to his suit-and-tie job every day. By 1980s standards, it was the bee’s knees. But let’s be real here, those things didn’t keep anything cold for more than a couple of hours.
That red and white cooler was also his fishing cooler and his Little League game cooler. If he were ever immortalized as an action figure, that would be one of the accessories that came with it along with a pack of Winston’s. Unfortunately, it wasn’t overly durable and his annual Christmas gift was usually a replacement. Thankfully they were only $20.
Somewhere in the 2000s, soft-sided personal coolers really took off but my old man never bought into the hype. He enjoyed the structure. He liked to be able to clean the cooler out at the end of a long week. After all, how do you go from carrying turkey sandwiches and a couple of Cokes during the week to carrying a Rainbow Trout and a couple of cold ones on the weekend in a fabric cooler? You know how that sucker would smell come Monday.
Fast forward to the present day and I am the kind of guy who carries a cooler around. No, it usually doesn’t have a 6 pack of Bud Heavy in it, but it usually does have snacks, sandwiches, water, and juice for my kids, and me. It’s a Yeti Tundra 45 and though it’s great for camping trips and road trips, it’s too much cooler for my day-to-day. But, there isn’t a personal-sized cooler on the market that meets the standards I’ve become accustomed to since hauling that large cooler around.
Enter the Yeti Roadie 15.
The smallest in the Roadie line, the 15 (along with the Roadie 24) replaces the original Roadie 20. The 15 fits everything I need to keep my kids and me hydrated and fed as we head out for the day. It also holds enough frosty beverages if I want to float down a lazy river or tailgate at the next Kings of Leon concert. What’s more, it fits on the front seat of my 4Runner, or the floor. This frees up space in the back so we can take the dog along.
The Details
- External Dimensions: 16.9” long x 11.2” wide x 14.0 high
- Internal Dimensions: 13.6” long x 7.5” wide x 10.6” high
- Empty Weight: 9.6lbs
- Capacity: 22 12 oz cans -or- 16 lbs of ice
- Price: $200
In regard to putting 16lbs of ice in this cooler – that’s crazy talk. However, it’s nice to know it can possibly hold that much. In my experience with Yeti coolers, I can tell you that 5 lbs of ice is more than enough to keep the contents of this cooler cold and consumable for a couple of days. If you don’t want to give up capacity for ice, you should consider picking up both a small ($13) and medium-sized Yeti Thin Ice ($18) ice pack. They fit the bottom of the Roadie 15 perfectly and take up 1/4 the space cubed ice would.
While I’m spending your money, I would also recommend you pick up a small Roadie Hard Cooler Basket ($20). This allows you to keep a sandwich or two, or snacks up and out of the way of any ice and gives you even more room for drinks.
What Can It Be Compared To?
Both dimensionally and capacity-wise, the Roadie 15 is most comparable to Yeti’s Hopper Flip 12 Soft Cooler ($250). Where the Hopper 12 is soft-sided and weighs only 3lbs, it is $50 more and will have a shorter lifespan than the hard-sided Roadie. What that lifespan is, I do not know.
How Long Will The Contents Stay Cold?
Things like external temperature, how many times the cooler is opened and closed, as well as how much ice was put into it in the first place play a major role in any cooler’s ability to keep its contents cold. That said, Yeti won’t go on record and give an exact length of time that you can expect one of their coolers to keep its contents cold.
During testing it has been between 80 and 90 degrees with a nice thick layer of humidity. I’ve used both the Yeti small and medium Thin Ice for ice and have been able to keep the contents in the cooler cold for three days through extreme use. That’s with leaving the cooler in the truck day and night. If you don’t leave it out in the summer heat and use it like you regularly would, I believe you get a solid work week of cool contents out of the Roadie 15.
Capacity Claims
With all due respect to Yeti and any other brand making a premium cooler, all of their capacity claims are a bit off, generally – but not by much.
If you use the small and medium Thin Ice ice packs you can fit 16 standard 12oz or 16oz cans inside the Roadie 15. When you add in the small cooler basket, the capacity gets reduced to 14. That’s still robust for a personal cooler that will stay cool.
When you switch over to food and drink mode – say for a day out at the beach – you’ll find that it carries everything you need with room to spare. But there’s nothing wrong with bringing a little extra along, especially if you have kids!
Bear Proof? No. But Lockable
One of the common features of Yeti’s Tundra line of coolers is that they’re IGBC-rated, or – in layman’s terms – bear proof. This is done through a combination of the cooler itself being tough as nails, and using a lock through a molded-in lockhole. This lockhole is not present on the Roadie line of coolers. However, Yeti gives you a coupon for a free Lockport with the purchase of any of the Roadies.
The Lockport is a set of stylized rubber pucks with a steel core. They screw into the lid and body of Roadie, allowing you to lock it. There are even dimples molded into the cooler for the screws to make it wicked easy. However, using the Lockport will not make any of the Roadie coolers bear proof – just humanproof. Depending on what you’re carrying around, it might be worth the five minutes it takes to make the modification.
Whether I have to leave the Roadie 15 on the shore to catch some waves, or when I’m out on the soccer field cheering on my kids, I found that even something like BearBolts (which is actually designed for Grizzly bears) provides a little peace of mind. BearBolts don’t actually lock (because bears don’t have thumbs and can’t use keys) but act as a strong deterrent for anyone being nosey.
The last thing I want is someone borrowing my salsa or a couple of crispy cold ones.
That Carry Strap Though…
I am a fan of well-thought-out things that look and perform really well. It’s the engineer in me. It’s also the product reviewer in me. When I turn off the testing part of my brain and use this stuff as a regular dude living his life, I want whatever it is to be easy to use. But I want it to look good as well.
Yeti hit a home run with the carry strap for the Roadie 15. It can easily be removed and reinstalled and is easy to adjust. It has a handle built into the strap for easy, one-handed carry as well. This makes for easy transportation from one place to another.
However — I would love to see Yeti come out with a line of patterned straps and colored straps. If they can offer up a bull head that mounts to their Tundra line of coolers, I think they could offer up some different straps for us to personalize our prized coolers. I’m thinking Mexican blanket, checkered, rainbow; hell – make one that looks like an old guitar strap!
Overall
I was looking for a personal-sized cooler that would work for my kids and me, as well as when I head out on my own. The Roadie 15 filled that void. It also fills a void in the market where people are buying cheaper hard coolers or soft-sided coolers that don’t get the job done as well as this one has, so far. This leads to people buying more and more coolers and filling our landfills with the underperforming ones that didn’t meet their needs and they moved on from.
Many moons ago I was hesitant to buy into the Yeti hype. I just didn’t think it was worth spending the money they charge for their products. Over the years, I’ve realized that you get what you pay for. Yes, Yeti is a whole vibe on its own. They’re a lifestyle brand that makes coolers that end up being status symbols for some people. However, for those of us who rely on them in our day-to-day lives, they really are the cream of the crop.
Bottomline: Do you need this cooler?
Look — no one absolutely needs a $200 cooler, but it’s an investment that pays dividends. There may come a day when Yeti runs out of ideas or people stop spending $200-500 on coolers, but until that day comes, we should enjoy the bounty of their efforts. The Roadie 15, like their other coolers, is durable and reliable. It keeps its contents cold longer than any other personal-sized cooler I’ve used and is a great place for my growing collection of cool stickers.
If you’re someone, like my old man and I, who uses a cooler every day – don’t sleep on the Roadie 15. You’ll find that it’s just the right size for your adventures.
Kudos to you, Yeti. You have, yet again, reinvented the personal cooler! Get back at me about those custom cooler straps. I’ve got ideas for days.
