My Everyday Carry – The Dometic Recon Hardside 41L

As Hanna consistently reminds me, since we’ve retired we’re now on a fixed budget.

The former may not be true. I’ve been on the road for over 160 days this year chasing fish, stories and small checks for writing. But the latter’s definitely true – with no predictable source of income we’re trying to save a buck wherever and whenever we can.

That means taking food on all of our road trips, especially when there’s no per diem coming in to pay back expenses. We stock up on sandwich fixings, snacks and drinks at home and try to make them last as long as possible. We’ve eaten more than occasionally in hotel rooms and on the rear bumper of the Suburban in truck stop parking lots.

And the cooler that’s consistently gone with us to places like Buffalo, Missouri, Chattanooga and the Outer Banks is the Dometic Recon Hardside 41L. Ours is a shade of army green known as “lichen,” but there are three other colors available.

The Recon Hardside 41L is part of Dometic’s larger Recon ice chest lineup which also includes 69 liter and 16L sizes, as well as three models of soft sided coolers. This model is the perfect size for most of our needs – it carries a ton of food but it’s only 25 pounds empty and measures 16.54x17.95x22.05, which means that I can load it into the vehicle by myself and then also retrieve it and carry it into the cabin or up the hotel steps without destroying my back. That’s a huge advantage since I’ve been on the road myself much of the time.

But there are plenty of other competitors in that same general size range, and not all of them come with the Recon’s $324.99 price tag. Dometic themselves offer the Patrol Series, which are rotomolded and heavier, and not nearly as feature-rich, at substantially lower cost.

So what is it that I liked about the Recon?

First off, the four latches – two on each side – are super heavy duty and snap into place with a satisfying click. More importantly, perhaps, if all four are opened you can remove the top completely. That makes for each loading, since you’re not trying to prop open the cover with one hand or fearing that it’ll fall on your fingertips.

The handles on the sides are also solidly attached and sturdy. There’s no concern that one will break and send the whole thing crashing down on your feet or down a flight of stairs. They too flip down and sit flush when not in use, without flapping around. Inside a vehicle they won’t grab onto errant straps or gear and make everything into a jumbled mess.

Once locked in place, the latches make a solid seal at the top, not letting out any air or odors. The former is important because this sucker keeps things cold for a long time. We got home from the Outer Banks on a Friday, removed our food, and when we went to reload the cooler for a trip to South Carolina on Sunday the ice packs inside were still rock solid. We’ve had them in there for up to five days – with occasional opening and closing of the lid – without completely defrosting. The ergonomics are incredible, but for me it comes down to how well it keeps things cool and this one passes the test.

It has an internal divider and a tray in the top where we’ve kept things we didn’t want intermingled with our food, but generally I leave the tray at home to maximize space. There’s also a drain but I’ve never used it because I’ve exclusively used ice packs instead of cube ice on my trips.

One way that I haven’t used it is in concert with other Recon Models. They’re streamlined and stackable, with nonslip rubber tops, that enable them to maximize internal space while minimizing their travel footprint.

I can attest that mine is not only able to keep things cold, but also rock-solid. It’s been dropped off a tailgate, accidentally kicked more than a few times, and generally abused around the country in support of my healthy and cost-effective eating habits.

Is it worth the lofty price tag? Only you can judge that for your particular uses, but it’s in line with the cost of other premium ice chests. If you’re just going to the beach for a day or putting out a few beers during a cookout, you might not need something with two-inch-thick insulation, but I’ve gone from Virginia to Tennessee to Missouri to Tennessee and back to Virginia again over the course of a few weeks and my uneaten lunch meats showed no sign of spoiling. My drinks were still cold. And I saved on ice by just refreezing my cool packs in hotel room freezers. If you’re looking for that kind of performance – without needing a second cooler or a second set of muscles, this should be on your shopping list.