Though it’s a bit too tall to be able to leave in place when we want to make the bed, it fits just fine on the front seat. If you have a bigger van though, it would double as an additional seat in the cabin. How does this compare to some of the premium coolers on the market such as Yeti? There are very few head-to-head comparison tests between the Ozark Trail and other coolers like Yeti, so it’s hard to tell exactly where it stacks up in terms of ice retention. But from what I can see it’s one of the lower performing roto-molded coolers when it comes to ice retention. Luke is a co-founder of bestcooler.reviews, a cooler expert and author of 70+ reviews on this website. The next essential piece to a cooler that can hold ice for long periods is a thick rubber gasket. Sure enough, Ozark Trail has sourced a freezer-grade gasket that is eerily similar to what you will find on much more expensive coolers on the market. Hot Springs, Arkansas, celebrates its rich history as a place for healing and relaxation. Several spas are open year-round if you wish to soak away your troubles. The winter festivities in Branson center around Silver Dollar City's Christmas celebration. During the winter, the amusement park opens for the perfect family getaway, featuring 6.5 million twinkling lights, over 40 productions, and a Christmas parade led by Rudolph himself. The coolers are less than half the price of Yeti coolers, so I fully expect them to not be perfect. But for their price they perform pretty well are are overall pretty great coolers. This isn’t a huge issue as the prices are always cheap, but it’s sad when you buy your cooler only to have it go on sale the next day. Bestcooler.reviews, established in 2015, is a leading blog-style magazine dedicated to reviewing and blogging about coolers. Both co-founders of the site, Luke and Greg, are two genuine cooler geeks and have been so for ages. Both guys share their passion on this website, covering different types of coolers, posting in-depth buying guides and reviewing tens of different products every year. Basically, you have a small cooler, you have a medium cooler, and you also have a fairly large cooler. They also have some great but more mainstream designs for the tightest of budgets, by the way. The style is better, build quality is better, they have better ice retention and more choice. If your budget can stretch a bit they are worth checking out. I really like these coolers as they offer great value but they don’t break the bank. In fact, at the time of writing this Lifetime coolers are even cheaper than Ozark Trail coolers with the 55-Quart selling for under $100. Ozark Trail’s soft-sided coolers have gone through quite a bit of variation over the past couple of years. Many of their models have undergone facelifts and new sizes of soft-sided coolers have also been introduced to the market. As we mentioned above, Ozark Trail has both hard-sided and soft-sided coolers. The hard-sided coolers are measured in quarts while the soft-sided coolers are typically measured in how many cans that they can hold. We will break down the size selections available to you in the next section. The coolers remained in the same location for the duration of the 6 day test, only being opened to snap daily progress pictures. The Pelican also features a different pull handle than the Yeti and Ozark coolers as well. I do think the Pelicans pull handle is the lowest on my list of the three. But even if you do deal with a minor quality issue, the amount of money you’ll save compared to comparable coolers is huge. Maybe you’ll get lucky and receive one without these problems. Ozark Trail’s lineup of soft coolers tries to adhere to their “affordability first” approach. This includes simple lunch boxes and tiers up to premium totes and cooler backpacks. Specifically, you will find 6-can, 12-can, 24-can, 36-can, 42-can, totes, and cooler backpacks. As for prices, the lower-end models are easily into the budget price tier while the premium creeps up to intermediate. The ice life, well not bad, was not near what Ozark Trail stated in their specifications. Here it’s really a battle of reputations, though, because, for the price, Ozark is a solid choice. So you have a strong gasket, but you need it to squeeze very tight if it’s going to be useful. In this case, the most popular latch design among premium coolers is the T-Rex Latch design. We have the 26-quart cooler, the 52-quart cooler, and the 73-quart cooler.