AO Coolers Expedition Canvas Soft-Sided Cooler Bag, Leak-Proof, Insulated, Lightweight

I purchased the 12 can size in order to transport breast milk during a 6 day trip out of town for work. Every day I brought this cooler to the convention with me along with a gallon sized ziplock bag full of ice. After pumping I’d store the milk in the cooler. I was away from a fridge about 8 hours each day but the cooler kept everything very cold. In fact, at the end of the day the ice would still be mostly unmelted in the ziplock bag, and the milk would be cold. At the end of the trip I packed all of the milk into my AO Cooler along with another ziplock bag full of ice. I was able to freeze some of the milk before flying and when I got home about 8 hours later only two 6oz bags of milk had slightly started to thaw. The rest was still frozen solid. Most of the milk I transported was not frozen and the sturdiness of this cooler prevented any bags from opening, even when jostled by other carry-on luggage in the overhead storage bin on the airplane. All of the milk was extremely cold when I made it home. If you are going to be expressing breast milk away from home more than 6 days, I might recommend getting the 24 can size instead. I could only fit a very little bit of ice in the cooler on my way home with the 12 can size that I purchased. This bag made the very stressful process of transporting and storing breast milk while away from home as painless as possible. The 12 can size is large – don’t expect it to easily fit underneath the seat in front of you on an airplane. But it is sturdy, well-made, and can protect your precious cold items during long periods of time away from refrigeration. As a side note – when I got home I accidentally left a ziplock bag full of ice in my AO Cooler for over a day before I realized it was there. The cooler was unzipped that entire time, and when I pulled the bag out of the cooler, the ice had melted but it was still extremely cold. The insulation in these coolers is pretty amazing.

This cooler is unbelievable! I got the 12 can cooler to be able to take a few days of lunches when I travel. You can throw a freezer pack or two in there in the morning and they’re mostly still frozen in the afternoon. The insulation is unreal. It is very thick and very good. I cannot even believe the quality construction and materials of this cooler. This thing is no joke. I am so happy I bought it. I travel about five times per month for about 15 days and this thing is extremely durable and will last for ages. I have zero concerns about how cold it will keep my food and how durable this thing is going to be.

The inside liner is thicker than the old waterbed liners. It would be hard to puncture this with normal use. As far as it keeping ice in the form of ice in 100 degree temperature I'll do an update in July when I do a camping trip. I can say in 50 degree weather it kept icepacks cold for 3 days. I would recommend this cooler just on it's beefiness alone though. Incredibly well made! The outside is a heavy duty canvas with a tough zipper. You can buckle down the sides to save space in the car or leave them flipped up to pack more stuff inside. You can fit a lot of stuff in this thing. When we camp, we pre-make breakfast, lunch and dinners. We put them in food saver bags and then freeze them. We had 3 days of meals ( 9 or 10 food saver bags filled with food), a six pack of soda, 6 bottles of water and 3 6x9 ice packs. Being that it is soft side, you can really pack stuff in there (I did have the sides buckled down). The bags of food at the bottom were still frozen. Now kept in mind, this was in 50 degree weather. I'll do an update after my July camping trip. UPDATE -July 2015 Wow...even more impressed with this cooler. I also bought the 24 pack cooler to use along with my 36 pack. I had 12 pre-chilled bottles of water and ONE Artic - Tundra series ice pack (these ice packs are fantastic) in the cooler in the car for 6 hours. The range of temperature inside the car was 83-110 degrees. In 2 hours I checked -the bottles directly under the Tundra ice pack were now half frozen -Amazing! Car temp was 98 degrees. 4 hours later the ice pack had unthawed a bit and the bottles of water were still ice cold. I like using ice packs when ever I can. Clean up after use is a breeze. Empty the cooler, put the pack back in the freezer with very little wipe down -I'm done. I have bought a lot of coolers both hard & soft sided looking for the best option without spending a couple of hundred on a Yeti. I have always preferred a soft side because they take up so much less room in the car. I have to say, I can stop looking now.

I bought this soft cooler as I needed something that I would be able to keep in the hot car all day while keeping fruit throughout the day. I bought this along with a couple of Arctic Ice Chillin Brew series that I use in conjunction with some other frozen bags I have. I had a 96 degree day recently which this bag had to stay in the car all day. I packed up the pre-cooled bag around 4am with the ice packs and fruit. With it being opened several times throughout the day, I went to eat some cubed watermelon that I had in the bag, at around 6pm and the watermelon was still so cold that I had to give it some time because it was difficult to eat. A bottle of OJ put in there around 11am was icy cold when I got home at 7pm. A couple of things with this bag. Research how to get the most out of the bag and heed that advice. Steps like refrigerating the bag overnight before you want to use it might seem trivial but really do make a real world impact. Figure out the best ways to configure the ice. Hot air rises, even inside of a cooler; so pack the ice accordingly so that items near the top aren't warm with other items frozen on the bottom. This has unexpectedly become one of those products that I didn't know that I would love until it repeatedly has blown me away with keeping items cold. I don't know but I can't imagine a Yeti product providing more than double the value of this brand of cooler bag. If I wanted to and throw a con out there I would say that the logo could use some work and definitely has a long way to go to inspire the kind of lifestyle that I think a product like this is geared toward. When I see it it seems like a logo of a company that sells industrial shelving or metal. All of this is completely extraneous to the fact that this product is fantastic; both in performance and in value when compared to market competition. If you need a cooler like this you should be quite happy with this product; you might even find yourself blown away.

Used this on a 2-week sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands with 6 of the recommended COOLER SHOCK 18degree ice replacements. Had a 4-fold purpose: 1) take high quality meat and salmon we could cook ourselves for a party of 6 to save literally $1000+, 2) keep sunscreen, shampoo, and other liquids frozen so we could "carry-on" them through multiple TSA security checks, 3) keep ice cold on the sailboat , 4) easily carry ice and cold drinks to beaches. The 24-count size was a little large for under-the-seat carry-on so we had to check it. Would have fit in the overhead compartment. Kept everything frozen super-hard through 3 connections, 12+ hours, long layovers in 90+ degree heat. As others have recommended, turn your freezer down as low as possible to get everything frozen to as low a temperature as possible (ours goes down to 26degrees). Put the AO Cooler in the freezer overnight before leaving so it is also as cold as possible. I loaded the AO Cooler before putting it into the freezer because I was not sure if freezing it first would cause it to be brittle or difficult to load. Note that because of the "soft-sided" nature it was easy to squeeze it into our freezer after loading. This also made it comfortable to the touch when carrying. Realistically, when using this for ice for drinks, keeping beverages cold, etc. it really only works for 36 hours. Each time you open it decreases the time the ice stays frozen and by then end of 36 hours it was generally all melted water (still cold, but melted). In comparison, the regular Igloo coolers supplied by the chartering company only lasted 12 hours. Note that most ice we got seemed to be barely frozen at 32degrees and melted super-quickly. I would recommend getting 4 of the 10”x9” MID-SIZE-COOLER-SHOCKs for the sides of the 24-Count AO COOLER and the 5-pack of the COOLER-SHOCK-LUNCH-SIZE-PACKS for the ends and top. The 10”x9” were too wide to fit at the top. As per instructions (and science) it makes little sense to put the COOLER-SHOCKs at bottom. I cannot say enough about how sturdy this bag is. Only wish is that I got the backpack version as this is quite heavy when fully loaded.

This is a well made product. I've owned the older red version for about 9 years with the bag usually staying in my car trunk. It still looks almost brand new. I don't really use it as a cooler but instead to keep all my camp cooking supplies. The few times I've used it to transport hot/cold food it works really well. The inside is easy to wipe down if you have some spillage. I have the older version so the shape is a triangle shape, not a rectangle shape as the new version is. Because of the shape my version doesn't pack as much, so I'm tempted to get the new version or a different bag entirely. The bag is not that flexible so if you're trying to cram this into a tight space you might have an issue. If you want to use the bag to protect sensitive materials like camera lens or electronic gear it will give some fairly good cushioning.

Just received the 40 and I am very impressed with the quality. It will get it's first use this weekend, and I am sure that it will preform as good as it looks. Thanks Amazon for putting a quality product on the list.

I live in Phoenix. You may have heard, it occasionally gets hot here. Today it was 105. This is relevant because I had left my insulated food bag in my truck all day. It’s now 5 PM. It contained some steaks I had purchased to eat at work. Yesterday I worked a 24 hour shift, and forgot the bag in truck when I got home this morning. The Ice packs were still frozen and the contents in the bag still cold. I’m not sure of much more of a real world test than that. Highly recommended. Would definitely buy again.