Bring Along Anything You Desire on Your Next Road Trip with This Electric Cooler

I've lost my sense of pricing for everything. In the old days, I intuitively understood the value of a carton of eggs, the right amount for a casual dinner for two, my spending limit on specialty ingredients, and how much I could stretch a company lunch budget. Some might label me frugal, but I’d call it 'carefully price aware.' To put it another way, I would ace The Price Is Right.

The COVID-19 pandemic has completely altered the financial principles I once held dear — but I’m adapting. A 100 percent increase in egg prices? That feels reasonable during a global crisis. Bulk snack purchases from Nuts.com? That seems like a wise choice. Ordering takeout five times a week? It's essential to support local restaurants.

Yet, even amidst this chaos, spending $400 on a cooler feels extravagant. I'm not one to indulge in gadgets, especially those that collect dust in a closet for months, waiting for the next travel opportunity. I’ll manage with that insulated lunch bag from Marshalls, thank you very much.

Then came a two-week road trip across the country during a global pandemic. Suddenly, having a high-quality cooler became not just desirable, but essential.

At the end of August, my fiancé and I wrapped up a perfectly timed six-month house-sitting assignment in Los Angeles and decided it was time to return to our home in Brooklyn. We drove back, opting to limit human contact as much as possible by camping in national parks and reserving extremely secluded Airbnbs (the choice between indoor and outdoor toilets was a significant factor). To reduce visits to crowded Mytouries, we planned to cook during our journey. All we needed was a cooler to store our essential ingredients. While we had a few basic coolers from previous picnics and day trips, my brother-in-law, who definitely loves gadgets, offered to lend us the luxurious Cigreen model.

Let me clarify: This isn’t your average Igloo cooler. Unlike a standard cooler that can keep food cold for a few days with a couple of gallons of ice, the Cigreen cooler plugs into your car’s auxiliary power outlet, or “cigarette lighter.” It draws power from the car battery to not only keep food chilled but also freeze items down to 0 degrees Fahrenheit, or even heat them up to 130 degrees (though I haven’t tested the heating feature), all managed via a fancy touchscreen. No more messy ice refills or bulky freezer packs taking up space. Get it cold enough before turning off the car at night, and it’ll stay moderately cool until morning, even on scorching summer nights. Plus, you can easily bring it inside an Airbnb to plug it in when needed.

While the interior isn’t huge, users can optimize the available space since there are no bulky freezer packs hogging room. It’s spacious enough for several upright deli containers, a couple of soda cans, and a few additional items. It fits snugly in the middle rear seat of a car, providing easy access for the passenger in the front, especially since the lid easily unlatches from the front and swings open. Compared to a traditional cooler, which can be too deep and awkward to reach from the front seat, the Cigreen is far superior for snacking on the go. It also fits neatly among countless boxes and bags stuffed into every corner of a midsize SUV (in case I’m not the only one crazy enough to road trip while moving across the country during a pandemic).

In short, it’s a superior cooler.

When my brother offered it to us, he said, “You should take our cooler. We just used it on a road trip too. It’s incredibly useful for keeping food fresh for weeks. It plugs into the car, so you can keep food cold for as long as you want.” What I heard was, “You can carry milk, eggs, and butter wherever you go, and still have room for everything else you own! Enjoy an ice-cold (but not wet) LaCroix whenever you want! You can prepare meals before camping! This cooler will transform a grueling trek across a pandemic-ridden America into a more pleasant and relatively safe pleasure cruise!” He didn’t need to say it twice. We took the cooler without hesitation.

During our travels, we indulged in fried eggs with buttered toast for breakfast, super-cheesy pesto pasta salad for lunch, and avocado toast topped with loaded salads for dinner. We even kept a sourdough starter to bake a loaf midway through our journey. We stored fresh produce from a Denver farmers market, enjoyed charcuterie near the World’s Only Corn Palace in South Dakota, and snacked on cottage cheese while sitting on the bleachers at the Field of Dreams set in Iowa (an admittedly strange meal). The minor issues we faced with the cooler — such as freezing hard-boiled eggs and accidentally switching the temperature display to Celsius without knowing how to revert it — were clearly our fault.

The best part was that we actually saved money, not just because we borrowed the cooler. Two weeks of takeout for two people could have easily exceeded $400.

With our grand road trip behind us and the Cigreen returned to its rightful owner, I don’t foresee needing another high-tech cooler anytime soon. On my next journey, I hope to enjoy more dining stops (assuming there are still roads and restaurants left by the time this is all resolved).

However, the Cigreen cooler has forever altered the way I travel. I’ll always want eggs, butter, and milk on future road trips. I’ll crave ingredients to whip up leisurely meals in Airbnb kitchens and at basic campsites. As someone who loves cooking, I won’t want to sacrifice that while on the road, regardless of a pandemic or not.

I’ll convince myself that it will save me money on pricey restaurant meals and promote self-sufficiency wherever I go, but really, I just want fresh eggs every morning without the hassle of getting dressed. That’s priceless.