RTIC Ice Lunch Bag Review

Keeping your drinks cold on a hot day is one of those perennial problems everyone has a solution to. Some keep themselves within reach of a freezer, where ice cubes are always on tap, whereas others are willing to splurge at the nearest convenience store for a cool reprieve. Us? We’ve been fans of insulated water bottles for a long time, but some drinks are just better in their original packaging; it’s futile trying to pour a soft drink into a reusable bottle.

Which brings us to food bags like the RTIC Ice Lunch Bag. With gel baffles that act as built-in ice packs, it sets itself apart from insulated competitors by eliminating the need to pour in ice cubes.

Gimmicky or effective? Let’s find out.

External Components

The RTIC Ice Lunch Bag exterior looks pretty unassuming for a bag with cleverness built into its structure. The fabric is polyester, which is not the toughest-looking fabric out there, especially when you closely inspect its fine weave. That’s okay since we’re not really planning on dragging this humble lunch bag through thickets and shrubbery; we’re not trying to rip it out of spite. However, we are adventurous, with plans for the occasional beach and canoe trips. Fortunately, the polyester has held up just fine in either scenario, albeit with some sand and dirt tucked between its nooks and crannies.

If we’re being honest, the RTIC Ice Lunch Bag looks and feels pretty sturdy. That’s because, despite the seemingly basic polyester fabric, RTIC has slathered a lot of structure around this bag. That comes from the piping and reinforcement around the edges and the built-in gel packs that give the entire bag a thick consistency as you feel around it. Still, the entire thing can still pack pretty flat, even with gel-filled baffles, which is perfect for when you need to keep this in storage.

The size and shape seem reasonable, if a bit aesthetic, if you ponder for too long. The lone blue colorway may not be available at the time of writing, but its monotone vibe, coupled with the bag’s triangular side profile, just looks symmetrically satisfying and minimalist. Pick the Black or Sand colorways, and you’ll pretty much get the same effect. But if you’re feeling a bit more playful, then the Busy Beaver and Polar Ice might just tickle your fancy.

Features-wise, you only get the necessities. The handles are almost mere extensions of the lunch bag itself, arching up and meeting to complete the triangular side profile. Flat as they are, they still feel thick and reasonably comfortable, even with six cans inside. A small hook-and-loop patch keeps the handles together so that they don’t fall flat as soon as you let go, potentially ruining any picnic photo op you may be planning (yeah, we get it).

The main compartment gets a lone zipper. It has a T-shaped zipper pull that’s color-matched to the rest of the pouch and surprisingly fits the aesthetic. Who knows why? Maybe it reminds us of scientific equipment you’d expect to find on an arctic weather station, since those usually feature large levers with T-shaped handles. In any case, the zipper is fairly easy to operate, even when your hands are wet from handling ice-cold beverages. Our only nitpick is that the zipper is unbranded, so we’re not quite sure about its long-term quality or whether it’ll break after a year or so. Be that as it may, it’s still working after two weeks of testing, so it passes.

Inside The Cooler

Inside the main compartment, you’ll find a bare interior with a slick liner, as is often the case with bags designed for food (you don’t want spills to turn into stains, after all). It’s all very roomy, too. If traveling with a six-pack of 12-ounce cans, you can store them side-by-side as normal. You can’t really stack cans on top of each other upright, but you can put at least one can on its side on top of the six others since there’s some overhead space to play around with.

For those who would rather keep food cold, such as salads and desserts, your mileage will vary depending on the container you’re using. That said, if you want to make sure, RTIC sells its own line of bento boxes that will surely fit. Whichever route you go, you’ll be pleased to know that the interior’s floor is quite flat. In fact, there’s not even a seam running down the middle where we’d usually expect one. This should make packing with squared-off containers much easier. Even the top area doesn’t taper too sharply, considering the entire lunch bag has a triangular side profile.

Now, let’s talk about how this entire bag is supposed to keep your food and drinks cold. As mentioned, there are built-in gel packs within the fabric. They’re horizontally baffled so that the entire bag can still have some degree of flexibility even once the gel has frozen—a process which takes about eight hours, so we suggest not forgetting to do that before your big trip. You can functionally think of the entire bag as a wrap-around cooling pad, the same kind you use as a cold compress when you have a sore spot.

So, does the whole concept work? Well, yes! The gel-filled baffles freeze and stay cold for a long time. In testing, the entire bag was still about 50-60% frozen after two hours and completely melted after four hours. The good news is that the drinks we kept inside remained ice cold even once the entire bag defrosted. The bad news comes in the form of condensation. A lot of condensation.

From what we can tell, there’s not much—if any—insulation within the material to prevent humidity in the air from condensing on the outer fabric. In hindsight, it does make sense since insulation could prevent you from freezing the gel baffles in the first place. So, in the four hours we’ve waited for the gel baffles to melt in testing, the entire bag was practically soaked with condensation. It dries up after the six-hour mark, but then the drinks inside start to develop condensation.

All of that said, condensation may not be that much of a deal-breaker, considering you don’t need to fill the bag with ice like other food bags of a similar purpose. Hey, if lugging around an ice slush-filled lunch bag isn’t your thing, maybe a weirdly moist lunch bag might be worth considering.