Knox Electric Cooler (and Warmer)

I cannot say enough about this Knox Cooler  (model KN-CCW27QB). It is amazing and does the job.

We needed a cooler for a road trip, and since we were flying in and getting a rental car, our first thought was to get a cheap styrofoam cooler and toss it at the end of the trip. But that was inconsistent with our reuse/recycle beliefs.

After a lot of research, I settled on this cooler. Here's why:

1. It included two power cables: one for the car and one for indoors.
2. We would be able to take it home with us on the airplane as carry on luggage. It measures 13 x 17.2 x 18.4 inches and the airlines carryon limits are 9 inches x 14 inches x 22 inches.
3. The reviews were good. There were some negative, but that most likely had to do with people not reading the directions.
4. We could have it delivered to our hotel and the price was right.

A couple of notes...

• We used this cooler during a 10-day road trip and not once did we did not eat out (pandemic + Celiac = self food prep).
• Food was kept nicely cold. Some of the items we stored included 1/2 gallon of milk, 1/2 gallon of orange juice, a giant tub of yogurt (which we used all 10 days), almond milk, frozen dinners/burritos, bagged salad, boiled eggs, and so forth. For two people, it was the perfect size!
• Before loading it up with food, we would pre-chill it for 20 minutes or so. For example, when staying in a hotel for the night, we would put the food into the refrigerator overnight; the next morning, we turned on the cooler prior to loading up our food. 
• The fan is very quiet. But, I am a person who doesn't like to hear any noise at night, so I opted to use the hotel refrigerator. We did leave the food in the cooler plugged in one night and it worked great.
• Since the cooler shuts off when the car is off, we had brought a quart sized freezer bag, filled it half way up and froze it each night so that we had a little piece of ice for the cooler. I don't know that this was necessary, but I liked not worrying about the food when we stopped to do something for a few hours. We also had one frozen meal in the cooler just about every day (more on this in our "oven" post)
• Our experiences are based on a road trip in mid March, and the high temperatures were in the mid-70s. If it had been summer time, I would have moved the cooler to the trunk when we made stops, just to keep it out of a hot car.
• The lid is heavy, so when it is empty, it is helpful to position it so that the lid is against a wall so that it doesn't accidentally get tipped over. 
• We did not use the warming feature on this cooler.