My lovely wife gave me a Yeti Tundra Haul a few years ago for Christmas. It’s the Yeti with wheels. It’s a beautiful cooler. But it’s also big and heavy, and I was unsure I wanted it. I went back and forth, thinking about the amount of room it takes up in our house (we won’t be keeping a super-expensive cooler in the garage with all the spiders and heat and whatever else, will we?) versus hearing stories about how long it will keep ice (“and three days later . . . !”). I was also concerned that it wouldn’t fit in my tiny Chevy Bolt.
Well, I kept it, and I have been very happy with it. It holds a lot of stuff. This makes it ridiculously heavy when full, but it really does seem to keep ice for a long time. And it fits (barely) in my tiny Chevy Bolt.
One of the other reasons I kept it was that I had seen friends with Yeti coolers, and they all had a wire dry goods basket in the inside of the cooler. Yeah, it comes with the cooler, they would say proudly. Awesome. When we go camping, I’m usually worried on day two about seeing a half-used bacon package bobbing up and down in the mix of water and semi-melted ice, contaminating the beer. I looked at these friends with their dry goods baskets, and I was envious.
Hence, I was excited about having a metal rack in my new Yeti cooler. Yet, the Tundra Haul not only doesn’t come with a wire basket, Yeti doesn’t even make a wire dry goods basket for the Haul.
I have off and on researched this issue in the ensuing years, hoping that Yeti would come to its senses and announce a basket for the Haul. I went on Yeti’s website more times than I care to admit, but Yeti has made no such announcement (to my knowledge).
Then I found this plastic basket from a company called BEAST. I bought it. It works great. It fits perfectly. We’ve used it on several camping trips, and it keeps the food dry. It doesn’t hold a ton of stuff, but it is big enough to keep that aforementioned bacon package and a few other items separate from the drinks.
I’m not excited about adding more plastic to the world or getting another thing that I have to keep up with, but I figure this plastic basket will last awhile, or for as long as this coddled giant cooler sits in its air-conditioned storage space in our house.
Oh, and I found this on the Yeti website, explaining why they don’t make dry goods baskets or dividers for the Haul.
Water sloshing around? Come on, Yeti. Shoot us straight here. Don’t we all know that at some point, water will slosh around inside a cooler, wheels or no?
Anyway, I’m pleased with the BEAST’s workaround. Please let me know if you have any better explanations as to why Yeti won’t make baskets for the Haul. You can buy the BEAST’s plastic basket here: https://amzn.to/3CXW63n.
(Disclosure: This blog is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program and earns commissions on qualifying purchases. Thank you.)
UPDATE: I’m late to the game. Apparently, Yeti recently introduced a dry goods basket for all of its wheeled coolers. It is called the Yeti Wheeled Cooler Dry Basket. You can find it here. Unfortunately, it is out of stock. It does look nice though and apparently has a rubber gasket to keep the basket in place when the cooler is tilted. I signed up to be notified when it is available again, and I will update with a review when I hopefully receive one.