DVexile
Adventurer
Do you bring cold drinks? Constantly open your refrigeration to get your cold drinks? Do long multi-day trips? Then a fridge is probably a really good investment. People that have 'em almost all seem to love them. If you are buying ice and do a lot of trips the fridge can even pay for itself if you've already got house power for other things.
Do you do one or two day trips at most and can apply a modicum of common sense to cooler use and packing? You probably don't need a fridge at all, but of course you could still get one and enjoy the convenience.
You do longer trips, but.... Do you mostly drink water or mixed drinks like lemonade, punch and so forth that don't need to be in cooler? Cooling mostly for food stuffs? Control the amount of openings? Pack your cooler for minimal thermal impact from openings? Understand the thermal properties of materials or willing to learn and apply? Then you can still do just fine with a cooler. If you don't have house power already, don't need it for other things and don't like hearing a compressor turn on all the time then maybe you want to skip the fridge.
As others have mentioned if you want water ice to last you need to use block ice - *cold* block ice. Do not drain the cooler. Control openings. Don't dump warm beer in it at mid-day. Pack appropriately.
The other option for long trips is dry ice. Effectively has about 3 times the cooling capacity per volume than water ice and of course never makes anything wet. It is widely available these days at many grocery stores. You do need to learn to carefully pack the cooler or you can rapidly freeze the contents. You need insulator between the dry ice and your food. The other option is to use a cooler full of dry ice as a "cold sink" and to use it to refreeze blue ice packs that are transferred to a small cooler for daily use. All of these things are fussy to do. So if you do lots of long trips again a fridge is going to probably be a lot easier to deal with and possibly cheaper in the long run. But if you only occasionally need to do a long trip and most trips are shorter some basic management techniques will let you keep food cold for many days in hot temps.
And I can't over emphasize the impact of lots of cold beverages. If you want ten cold cans of beer a day you really probably need a fridge. But don't underestimate the capability of good cooler management. I've done a five day trip in October in Saline Valley (temps mid-90s) and had two cold sodas a day along with cold cuts, hot dogs, butter, apples and so forth all in a 45 qt Igloo cooler (advertised as 5-day) from Walmart.
Since I have no need for house power for anything, I hate noise and I tend to drink mostly water or mixed drinks I have no plans or desire for a fridge. The people I run into at camps that always have a cold beer in their hands swear by their fridges and consider them the best investment they ever made. It is a horses/courses kind of thing. I think for the majority of people a fridge makes a whole lot of sense. But it depends on your needs and preferences.
Do you do one or two day trips at most and can apply a modicum of common sense to cooler use and packing? You probably don't need a fridge at all, but of course you could still get one and enjoy the convenience.
You do longer trips, but.... Do you mostly drink water or mixed drinks like lemonade, punch and so forth that don't need to be in cooler? Cooling mostly for food stuffs? Control the amount of openings? Pack your cooler for minimal thermal impact from openings? Understand the thermal properties of materials or willing to learn and apply? Then you can still do just fine with a cooler. If you don't have house power already, don't need it for other things and don't like hearing a compressor turn on all the time then maybe you want to skip the fridge.
As others have mentioned if you want water ice to last you need to use block ice - *cold* block ice. Do not drain the cooler. Control openings. Don't dump warm beer in it at mid-day. Pack appropriately.
The other option for long trips is dry ice. Effectively has about 3 times the cooling capacity per volume than water ice and of course never makes anything wet. It is widely available these days at many grocery stores. You do need to learn to carefully pack the cooler or you can rapidly freeze the contents. You need insulator between the dry ice and your food. The other option is to use a cooler full of dry ice as a "cold sink" and to use it to refreeze blue ice packs that are transferred to a small cooler for daily use. All of these things are fussy to do. So if you do lots of long trips again a fridge is going to probably be a lot easier to deal with and possibly cheaper in the long run. But if you only occasionally need to do a long trip and most trips are shorter some basic management techniques will let you keep food cold for many days in hot temps.
And I can't over emphasize the impact of lots of cold beverages. If you want ten cold cans of beer a day you really probably need a fridge. But don't underestimate the capability of good cooler management. I've done a five day trip in October in Saline Valley (temps mid-90s) and had two cold sodas a day along with cold cuts, hot dogs, butter, apples and so forth all in a 45 qt Igloo cooler (advertised as 5-day) from Walmart.
Since I have no need for house power for anything, I hate noise and I tend to drink mostly water or mixed drinks I have no plans or desire for a fridge. The people I run into at camps that always have a cold beer in their hands swear by their fridges and consider them the best investment they ever made. It is a horses/courses kind of thing. I think for the majority of people a fridge makes a whole lot of sense. But it depends on your needs and preferences.
