I have two water bottles I take with me just about everywhere. One water bottle goes with me when I am going somewhere that will have clean water. I take the other one with me any time I am going out of the country. These are the best travel water bottles I’ve found for disasters.
I’d recommend everyone own one of each.
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Travel Water Bottles for every adventure
Not every adventure needs every piece of gear. So we will cover two travel water bottles. One for the more adventurous journey and the other for a more typical outing.
Sawyer Personal Water Filtration Bottle
Traveling to a country with questionable water sources doesn’t have to mean accepting the fate of getting a GI bug at some point. The citizens have likely built up immunity to their water supply by now, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be down for a few days with something that was preventable.
The Sawyer water bottle is the bottle for adventures, missions, disaster relief, travel through unfamiliar airports, and third-world countries. If you need the perfect all-around travel water bottle, this is it. Its convenient design allows you to put any water in and filter it as you drink.
Its built-in Sawyer filter removes 99.99999% of bacteria (salmonella, cholera, and E. coli) and 99.9999% of protozoa (cryptosporidium and giardia).
Note: The filter doesn’t remove viruses, chemicals, or pesticides.
Their filters last and don’t need to be replaced every few months like many other brands.
“The filter can be cleaned and reused almost indefinitely with no expensive cartridges to replace… ever. We recommend backwashing and sanitizing the filter after every outing for optimized use.”
–Sawyer
That being said, even the filters that have any sort of “life expectancy” say they will filter up to 100,000 gallons, so you don’t have to worry about the filter for a very long time. For those curious, 100,000 gallons would filter water for over 547 YEARS for a person drinking the recommended 8 cups of water a day!
Quick note: if you open this on the airplane at 30,000 feet water will shoot out from the top! Ask me how I know 😉 For more travel tips, check out this article.
Nalgene Glow in the DARK
I’ve had this bottle for several years. It is exactly what I was looking for in a water bottle! It comes with the standard durable body of the Nalgene bottles and glows in the dark.
During disaster relief trips, you often sleep in a room with several other people. The power doesn’t always work, and you don’t want to wake everyone up with a flashlight to get a drink of water. Put this bottle by your bed at night and you’ll have a faint glow to identify your bottle to take a drink when you wake up in the middle of the night.
It has another excellent feature. You can charge the bottle up a bit with the flashlight on your phone and then use it to walk out of the room without disturbing anyone. Just turn your phone’s flashlight on underneath the sleeping bag, point it at the water bottle to charge it up and you’re ready. No more disturbing everyone with the bright flash on your phone. Just a soft green glow to help guide you in and out of the dark room.
Nalgene is a very popular brand and has many additional accessories.
Nalgene bottles are made in the USA.
You can purchase the Nalgene bottle from Bass Pro here.
LifeStraw
LifeStraw wins in the best-marketed survival filter category. They’re in more stores, and drinking straight from a muddy puddle makes for an eye-catching advertisement. They’re light, portable, and get the job done. However, there are a few drawbacks. The LifeStraw requires more suction than the Sawyer water bottle and you can’t carry water in them either.
LifeStraw’s focus is to keep you alive in a survival situation. They’re light and small. If that’s what you’re looking for, this may be the filter for you. You can purchase the LifeStraw here.
Who are the winners?
Sawyer water bottles come out on top. The Sawyer filters themselves are versatile. You can remove the filter included in the water bottle and use it in line with a hydration pack. It also screws onto standard water bottles.
Nalgene wins for sheer durability and functionality-especially if you buy the glow in the dark bottle.
LifeStraw has its time and place, but we think you’ll want a more convenient option if you’ll be relying on it for more than just a few sips.
Have you used any of them? Let us know what you think below. Best of luck on your next adventure!
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