Summer is the season characterized by beach days, cookouts, lake hangs and road trips. If you’re taking day trips this season, you’ll want to keep your food and drinks cool. There are plenty of coolers that can do an adequate job, but if your primary concerns are quality, consistency and ice retention, you’ll want to go with a rotomolded option that can stand up to intense heat, transport and use.
Otterbox, a brand best known protective phone cases, might not be the first company that comes to mind in this arena, but its Venture 25 makes a compelling case for why it should be. Here’s what I liked — and didn’t — about the cooler after months of hands-on testing that included beach trips, days on the deck and for grocery runs in temps upward of 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
What I liked about the Otterbox Venture 25
The Venture 25 is well-built and efficient
Otterbox is known for its protective phone cases, and the brand’s know-how in that arena translates well into its line of coolers. My first impression of the Venture 25 was a positive one: I was impressed by the feel and construction of the cooler — and even more so when I learned Otterbox designs and builds its coolers in the United States.
The rule of thumb with rotomolded coolers is to pre-chill them beforehand for the best results and ice retention. I’ll be the first to say I don’t do this nearly as often as I should, and with other coolers, I suffer the consequences: watered-down ice by noontime, with food and drinks floating around the cold soup in a state of abject misery.
During my first test of the Venture 25, I failed to pre-chill it, but I didn’t pay for my lack of prep: the cooler sat outside all day in the sun and hot sand at the beach, and by sunset, I had barely lost any ice to the heat. Only a full 24 hours later did I have half a cooler full of water. In the second go-around with the Venture, I pre-chilled it for 12 hours prior to use. This time, the two-part polyurethane insulation easily kept the ice intact for the entire day.
