Call them what you will – ice boxes, eskies, cooler boxes, ice chests – the fact remains that there are some very easy tricks you can use to ensure your ice lasts much longer.

First up, you need to ensure you’ve got an ice box with high quality insulation like the thick polyurethane used in Kings Ice Boxes. Without quality insulation you’re not going to have much chance of keeping the beers cold for days at a time when you’re out bush camping. For this reason, steer clear of the budget cooler boxes that are okay for a couple of hours at a backyard BBQ and ensure you invest in a quality unit with thick EVA seals, aluminium hinges that won’t rust over time, and a good reputation like the camping gear from Adventure Kings.

Once you’ve got an ice box full of food, drink and of course ice, it’s very easy to make it last longer. Open the drain bung once or twice a day to let any water escape. It’s important not to let water pool up in your Kings ice box – even though it feels cold, it’s obviously a higher temp than the ice, and will melt it much quicker. By draining the water, your remaining ice is only surrounded by air rather than water, which won’t warm as quickly, meaning your ice won’t melt as fast.

Speaking of air, the less your ice has to cool, the easier job it has. The Kings icebox range has four sizes from a handy 40L up to a massive 100L. It’s important to pick the size that most makes sense for you. For example, if you do a lot of overnight trips, a 100L icebox will need many more bags of ice in it to fill the airspace compared to a 40L or 60L. If you need more than one size, it’s a good thing the Kings range is so affordable for such a quality product!

Keep an old tea towel in your Titan Rear Drawers and pull it out as you make a dent in your food and drink after a night or two away. Once your icebox is no longer full, the remaining ice has a lot more air to try and cool which accelerates its melting. But if you put a damp tea towel across the top of the remaining food and drink, it’ll create an insulating layer by separating what’s left of the cold stuff with the air. Do this and drain the water out of the bung, and you’re making life much easier for your Kings icebox and the remaining life in it.

Another tip is to freeze clean drinking water in old juice or milk bottles and use these as big ice bricks in the bottom of your Kings ice box. These are much cheaper than bagged ice, last longer because they’re so solid, and can be drunk as they melt – you can never have too much drinking water when you travel.

Of course no ice box no matter how good will be able to keep ice frozen forever. Once you start travelling for longer periods or head to places without a servo nearby to replenish your ice, you might need to add a quality fridge/freezer to your setup. With one of them you can actually create ice in the bush! When the time comes check out the Kings range of fridge/freezers – they’ve wowed the market with their range of high quality features at incredibly low prices!