Does a long-lasting instant ice pack exist?

• I am pumping breastmilk right now and travel fairly often. I have a system for everything except keeping milk cold during a long travel day. I have several gel style ice packs that need to be frozen to work. On the trip out I can freeze the gel packs and they stay frozen for about a day. My issue is that hotels never seem to have a way for me to freeze my ice packs for the trip back. So, I'm stuck with soggy gel packs (which TSA hates!) and it gives me anxiety about the milk getting too warm. Any ideas? In my experience hotels are challenged to even offer a fridge option in my room, and if I'm lucky enough to have a mini-fridge in my hotel room the freezer compartment is not cold enough to re-freeze a gel freezer pack. Most of the time I am using a mini-bar fridge to store the milk while at the hotel, and they do not have freezers at all. I have asked the hotels to put my ice pack into a freezer somewhere (assuming they have a big normal freezer) with extremely spotty results. Once it worked really well, but mostly they seem to stick the packs into a mini-fridge or something and they do not end up frozen after an overnight in those freezers. The only idea I have come up with "instant" freezer packs used for injury that don't need a freezer, but they look like they only last a few minutes. Is there anything like those packs that would last several hours? Other ideas? More possibly relevant details: - I am using an insulated cooler bag and taking the milk from a fridge to pack for the journey - travel time is typically 10-12 hours door to door (from hotel fridge to home fridge or freezer) - it's summer, so I may be outside in the really warm weather for some portion of that 10-12 hours. Travel is mostly in an air conditioned car or on a plane. - I try to keep my business trips to 1-2 days, so I'm typically only gone 36-48 hours total. - I have some options for hotels, but they have to be on a list my company approves of and I often don't have a lot of context for the hotel (may not have stayed there before). I'm usually in 4 star-ish level hotels. I try for a great service hotel like four seasons when I can, but it's not always possible. I'm often at W style hotels that have hit or miss service. I could stay at chain hotels like Sheraton or Hyatt if those are better at helping with this issue. In some cities there may be an option to stay at those hotels that have mini-suites and may have real refrigerators and freezers in the room. Most of the time I'm in a mini-bar situation with spotty service and kind of stuck with it. - it's not a huge big deal if the milk goes bad, baby can eat formula. It just doesn't feel great to have milk go to waste. I'm open to any ideas for how to tweak this situation so I can continue to pump for a few months while traveling. Thanks!

• Answer:

  I'm a type 1 diabetic who usually has a frozen ice pack (solid, not gel) to help keep my insulin cool. I try to stay at Holiday Inn Express...they usually have in room mini fridges with good freezers. Most of them are off the shelf models that you should be able to crank the settings way up. Extended stay hotels might be another option--usually have kitchenettes with full fridge/freezers and they will let you stay for one or two nights. Like you I've found that the so-called "quality" hotels are actually crap for what you really need for a productive stay.