Water. Every day.

In life – you may have nothing else – but if you have clean water, you have a great chance of survival.

Water is essential to life – this is definitely not a closely-guarded secret.

As part of our series on the nuts and bolts of travel I decided to start with how we treat water while traveling because it is the non-negotiable of any day in any location.

I have some affiliate links included – and I want to point out – I actually do not live in the USA, but I have found that most of the time I can get a product from Amazon US for less than the same price on my local Amazon page, including shipping and customs/import.

This is surprising to people so I wanted to mention it – clearly not a universal rule, but worth checking out.

So anyway you need water every day – no matter what.

Depending on where you are and what you are up to, clean and safe water may or may not be a sure thing.

When we are in one place – I use a Berkey and really appreciate it.

However, despite Berkey having a travel model, to me it’s not practical to tear down and move around while I’m the only adult traveling with young children.

You have probably noticed that taste and quality of water can vary dramatically even within the same region – due to a variety of factors from water source and municipal water facilities – all the way to what type of pipes are in the building and how well they are maintained.

The trouble with researching “is the water in _____ safe to drink?” is that safety is subjective to a degree.

For someone who has grown up in a particular location – they may be very well acclimated to water that would cause sickness to a tourist.

So for us – if we are just passing through somewhere we do not trust the water supply unless we personally know others from our country who safely drink untreated water in the area.

I still love my first ever water treatment purchases – both of which I bought from REI in the USA but are available on Amazon.

I bought a Grayl press (includes purification and also charcoal to remove bad tastes) for use in our accommodations, and a Katadyn BeFree for while we were in airports or on the road.

I continue to actively using the Katadyn BeFree while we are traveling, the convenience of water that is purified as you drink from the filter cap is just amazing. The quality and taste is always great – 4 years into using it.

The Grayl has been passed down to my oldest son for camping adventures – it has amazing water quality but too much manual effort for being the primary water source for an entire family of thirsty travelers day in and day out.

Grayl produces up to 24oz of amazing water in one “press” – which we can destroy in less than 5 minutes.

I’ve just invested in an MSR Guardian Purifier which is actually produced to US Military specifications – and it’s doing well so far, we are about to put it through extreme tests in sub-Saharn Africa and then the truth will be known (ha).