By: Blonde Two
There is no doubt about it, water is heavy. If you want to work out how heavy you don’t even need to be very good at maths, 1 litre of water weighs around 1 kilogram. Cutting down on pack weight by carrying lightweight camping kit can be expensive, for example it would cost you up to £300 to cut 1 kilogram off your tent weight. Cutting down on pack weight by carrying less water is relatively cheap but does require some forethought and planning. You need to think about your hydration requirements (at least 2 litres for a normal day’s walking), the presence of useable water on your proposed route (fast-running water is recommended) and your water filter or water purification plan(s) (it pays to have more than one).
Carrying less water
As I have mentioned before, I am currently working on ways to cut down the load on my knees when I am walking or wild camping. B1 has been a star about this and taken more than her fair share and I have recently saved myself £1800 in lightweight tents (a girl can’t have too many) by losing a stone in weight. I usually fill my 2 litre water bladder with tap water plus extra if I am wild camping. As well as this I carry purification tablets and often a stove (to boil water). I am definitely not recommending taking less fresh water than 2 litres but I have recently been quite excited to have been sent a far lighter alternative to the extra water.
Water filter bottle
The Aquapure Traveller by Pure Hydration is officially a ‘personal purification system’ but I prefer to call it a ‘water filter bottle’, which filters out all of the water nasties you are likely to find out walking and wild camping in an easy to use system. The water filter is attached to the bottle lid so all you have to do is fill up, screw the lid on and either drink or pour (I will refrain here from making reference to the ‘suck and squeeze’ advantages of this ingenious system!)
Using the Aquapure Traveller
You might recall my trying out Mr B2’s water filter by drinking water from the Rochdale Canal. This demonstrates how committed I am to my water filter review cause and so, despite having a van tank full of clean tap water and a campervan with no toilet facilities, I decided to try out the Aquapure Traveller on Dartmoor last week during my latest digital nomad experiment. It went well, I enjoyed playing with streams (obviously I didn’t cross them because ‘that would be bad’) and had fun both squeezing and sucking (although modesty prevents me from telling you whether or not I did these at the same time). Here are the results of the B2 Aquapure Traveller water filter review:
Ease of use: 10 out of 10 – I just filled up the bottle, fixed the lid on and drank. I didn’t even get my sleeves wet!
Speed of use: 10 out of 10 – Once I had found a suitable water source and filled up, the water was immediately safe to drink.
Taste: 8 out of 10 – No filtered water tastes as nice as it would directly from a stream but this was far preferable to the chlorine-like flavour of purification tablets.
Results: 10 out of 10. No adverse tummy effects were noted following my water filtering experiences and I was less thirsty than I had been before.
Price: At £39.99 this is a water filter product that you would need to use regularly if you wanted it to pay but it is worth bearing in mind that the filters (34.99) last for two years and water purification tablets aren’t that cheap (£7.99 for 50) plus these do have a limited shelf life.
If you want to find out more about water filtering and the Aquapure Traveller have a look at the Pure Hydration website. These guys have hydrated just about everybody and give some really useful information. Me, I am off to enjoy my new, lighter weight walking experience… 6 kilograms off me and 1 less for water! See me fly along…
From time to time we Blondes are sent free outdoor products to field test and promote on social media. We will always be honest about our findings and any products we don’t keep for ourselves find their way into our expedition stores. Great for us, great for you and great for our youngsters!
I think it’s important to be aware: although filtration will get rid of bacteria and larger nasties, it won’t get rid of water-borne viruses. Viruses are quite species-specific, though, so this is only likely to be a problem where humans have been in contact with the water upstream. Not likely to be a problem on Dartmoor, but filtering alone probably won’t be enough in rural Africa or South-America 🙂 Also, it won’t do anything for non-organic chemicals such as agricultural pesticides. Carbon filters can help with that, as well as taste.
There’s a fantastic video about water safety and purification here, for any interested:
Even though it was only released in 2015 the video appears somewhat dated in terms of the technologies demonstrated (although the advice on pre-filtering to remove turbidity is sound). Whether you call them “filters” or “purifiers”* there are a number of products capable of reducing waterborne microbiological pathogens including viruses, and some also address chemical contaminants. Independent testing to widely recognised standards for the performance of Individual Water Purification (IWP) devices has confirmed our performance against bacteria, cysts and viruses, and, although not (yet) a regular requirement for IWPs, we also contracted additional testing to demonstrate the chemical reduction properties of our M.A.D.® media. You can check out the results here: https://www.purehydration.com/about-pure-hydration/mad-purification-media/
*We often differentiate between “filters” and “purifiers” in terms of the spectrum of microbiological pathogens reduced, with filters being those devices capable of stopping waterborne bacteria and cysts, and purifiers performing against bacteria, cysts and viruses. However, the term “filter” is commonly used for both types of product.
You’re right; reading the description of how your MAD filter works, it certainly seems an impressive all-rounder, and I’ve not previously come across electro-adhesion as a filtration method, nor does there seem to be much information online.
Very interesting, though, and I’ll keep an eye on you guys :p Though it has to be said: with your inline filter costing £45 and rated at only 350L, that’s a big price difference to, say, the Sawyer Mini at about £35 for 450,000L. You have the advantage over the Sawyer in virus reduction, though!