Dry Ice? Or Regular Ice for camping?

Dry ice can be dangerous if it is handled incorrectly, and I would not have it around kids.

You are traveling. You simply stop and buy blocks of ice whenever you need it. The blocks will last a lot longer than the bags of cubes. You also stop occasionally at the local Safeway and buy fresh meat and fresh milk, instead of trying to carry enough for the entire trip.

When I travel and camp, I use a lot of food that doesn't have to be refrigerated. Fresh fruit, nuts, jerky, trail mix, small sealed bottles of juice, crackers, cereal, fresh potatoes.

Thank you everyone -
We camped yesterday and last night successfully. I know....two days and one night is not very long but it is a start! We used a huge deep "drink" type cooler.......one of those that you put water or lemonade in and it has the spout on the bottom.....but we put ice in the bottom, then we put a layer of a plastic container and the food sat in it.....then we put Blue Ice containers......I think we had 12 of the small size.....on top of the food and then we folded a thick bath towel over it......screwed the top on good.......and it lasted even though it was up to 93 here yesterday.......we still had ice in the bottom when we got home.

Thank you for all the tips and advice.

If you are traveling a lot by car, I recommend using, at least some of the time, a thermoelectric cooler, that plugs into the cigarette lighter outlet. They are about $45, but will pay for themselves on savings and hassle on buying ice. The Colemans come with a 110v ac adapter, if you can find AC somewhere, that you stay. They cool down pretty quick and although they won't make drinks tooth-numbing cold, it is adequate, for drinks, cold meat cheese, etc.

I lived out of one for a year (5 days a week) while truck driving.

Have fun.

One thing to remember, they can only cool so much below ambient temperature. So if you use it somewhere hot (95+) its not going to keep things very cool.

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Some of the best block ice forms I've ever found...they're narrower at the bottom, larger at the top and make about a 30 to 50 pound block of ice, depending on size. Ice pops right out.

I recommend not using the used ones, though....

Since you are car camping and moving around do what Oregon suggested, buy more ice from time to time. To make the ice last as long as possible you can use block ice, keep the cooler in as cool a place as possible (shade), put a wet towel over it, and don't use the blue ice packs. When a wet towel covers the cooler the water evaporates, keeping the cooler colder than the ambient air temp. It takes a lot more heat to melt a given amount of water ice than to melt the same amount of the blue ice stuff so the water ice will last longer.

Look into renting/buying a camper trailer with a 3 way refrigerator in it. You can run it off 110 volt current if the campsite provides it, 12 volt DC power while you are traveling, and 12 volt or propane when camping where there is no 110 ( watch your battery to be sure you have enough left to start the car). I usually go camping for 2 weeks in a campsite that provides you with a picnic table, a fire ring, and a pit toilet. Sometimes the walleyes won't bite for days and then they go nuts for a few days and then get lockjaw for 3 or 4more. It is not always possible to keep fish you caught only in the last 2 days so that they will keep in a regular cooler for the ride home. With the fridge I just freeze them as I catch them and they travel home just fine. I can always eat a few in camp if I get close to my limit.

I do without ice on long trips. I buy dehydrated food or make my own. Cheese will keep for a while if it is not super hot. I hiked the Appalachian Trail in 09 and spend 6 months hiking without ice. I keep crystal light to mix with water, powedered milk to mix with hot cocoa and for breakfast. I ate alot of mac and cheese, pasta sides, tuna, etc. One of my favorite meals to this day is a pasta side or rice package mixed with the sweet and spicy tuna packs. For me traveling light makes the trip more enjoyable.

Bags of ice will do a lot better keeping that cooler full of fish . . .even for a many hour drive home.

For my week long trips to the energy fair I put the Coleman metal sided cooler in a 1" blue foam outer box. With several frozen ice blocks everything was fine...............

Dry ice is great stuff, but I'd like to add one more thing. I'd be more worried about dry ice touching the plastic of the cooler rather than the food itself. Dry ice is so very cold that can cause the plastic to break just by touching it.

When you use dry ice, make sure that the dry ice has some isulation between it and the walls of the cooler. Burying it in the center of a big bag of regular ice works very well.

Thank you for the tip about the plug-in cooler. We had heard of those but have not researched them yet.

Good idea about the wet towel! That is an interesting concept and I bet it works too! Thanks.

Volleypc:
We do plan to use dry and or dehydrated food for part of the trip but for 4 to 5 weeks there will be times we need to use ice. Congrats on hiking the AT! Six month on a trail used to be a dream of mine but I let it go and work and kids took over.......maybe I can hike parts of it one day! My Older Son has 3 friends who are on the Trail now. They just reached Pennsylvania area. We are getting tips from others who have been on the Trail too and those are very helpful but at my age (57) and with a bad-back, I have to plan around that too. Congrats again!

We did think about buying a camper but cannot afford one right now. Also, we thought about renting a camper but the price of renting would use up money that really we could just use for a down-payment on buying one later! We thought about trying to buy a small cargo-hauler and build the inside ourselves, but we are very short on cash right now and even that would be too much for us.

So! For this trip we will make-do and "rough it" but we are doing a whole lot of planning ahead and looking to see what things we already have on-hand so we don't spend money. The boys are making a "challenge" out of it and all of them are searching the barn and our Cabins to find good camping items we can use. Middle Son found some old plastic dishes and bowls in a Cabin last week. Older son found 2 old folding chairs.

Thank you everyone - all these ideas and tips are greatly appreciated. I plan to post a new question later asking for Tips and Suggestions for a long camping trip and I hope some of you will pass on more ideas there.

Thanks and we appreciate the help.

Just a reminder on those "plug in" units.
They will only go 40 degrees below the ambient temp.
If it is 90f then -40 equals 50f.
So do you want your 'milk' at 50f . . . .???

Also the smallest one I have seen uses a constant 4 amps from a 12vdc battery...!!!
So if your at a 'camp site' and the motor is not running . . .your battery is going to run down REAL fast.

What are they good for . . .keeping a sandwich and a soda some what cool While your driving..............

We use a Coleman Extreme along with one of these:

http://www.popupgizmos.com/cooler%20cover%20page.htm