How do you purify water on your travels, do you buy fresh or treat it yourself?
-Christian Soltermann

Answer:

If you’re travelling in a remote area and can’t replenish fresh water, I recommend two solutions:

For in-camp filtration (as long as you’re near a river or lake) a gravity filtration system will give you a couple of litres of drinking/cooking water in half an hour, check out this Sawyer water filter system for one of the best on the market. Sling the top bag (with river/lake water) higher than the lower bag and let gravity do the rest.

For fast access to drinking water there are now multiple bottle options that come complete with filters. Water-to-Go bottles come with a bomb-proof filter that enables you to fill your bottle and drink straight away through the filter - these do leak a bit so only use if you can guarantee keeping your bottle upright at all times.

Katadyn have numerous options, they’re very good at what they do, as you’d expect from products with ‘Pro’ in the name. They’re expensive though and so are the replacement filters.

My favourite bottle option is an innovative plunger design from Grayl. Fill your bottle to the line, plunge with the lid (almost like you’d do with cafettiere coffee) and hey presto, in 15 seconds you’ll have a litre of fresh water.

As Anwar, a beautifully dry, focused and cunning West Bank hiking guide used to say, in a three-worded display of absolute, live-giving genius. “Drink water, please.”