BootsnAll Travel Community

Those water purification tablets that people talk about. ive never taken them but cringe at the thought.
are they truly as horrible as you'd think.

...its hard to know whether its the taste of the tablets or the dodgy water youre putting it into. You can also buy neutralising tablets to take some of the taste away.

However, I always carry a tube of those dissolvable orange flavoured Vitamin C tablets to drop in...but you do get sick of them after a while & no good for brushing your teeth...

so water purification tablets, neutralisers and something else for a bit of flavour.
thats eerrrr... interesting.
i cant wait for that.
i guess its better than an alien coming out of your ass.

It depends on how big the ass alien is.

I guess to add something a bit more useful...why are you taking the tablets at all? It depends on where you're going, but you will almost certainly be able to buy bottled water. It's cheap and you won't have to mess with chemicals.

No water purification tablets (was worried about the taste, and instructions for neutralizing...wait 30 minutes, etc...), so I got a Katadyn Exstream water bottle with a filter in it.

Used it quite a bit, and filled it up with some stank yellow river water, and drank it through that. And survived.

Although bottled water is pretty prevalent, as skobb stated.

quote:

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Originally posted by skobb:
I guess to add something a bit more useful...why are you taking the tablets at all? It depends on where you're going, but you will almost certainly be able to buy bottled water. It's cheap and you won't have to mess with chemicals.

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of course, if youre anywhere near civilisation you can buy bottled water....its when you go on say a week long trek up a mountain or in a jungle where you should drink 4 litres a day x 7 days, thats errr 28 litres...I wouldn't want to carry that. So then youre stuck with water from rivers & lakes, so you need to use the tablets then....

I agree with Stiv that purification is the way to go if you're truly leaving civilization for an extended amount of time.

However, since most people using this site are doing more of a city to city (or even village to village) backpacking type trip rather than hacking though the Amazon, I'm answering her question assuming that the poster just may not know the prevalence of bottled water.

Another reason to consider purification would be if you serious ethical concerns about going through countless plastic bottles while on your trip.

Cost of bottled water can also be an issue. I bought a purifier thinking that I would recoup the costs by not buying bottled water everywhere I go. The bottle-thread on the purifier accomodates a standard wide mouth nalgene, but it also has a smaller thread for standard water bottle openings.

When I just go hiking though, I carry water purification tablets, but I've never had to use them. I view them as an emergency option, and it does say right on the bottle that they shouldn't be used long term.

FYI: this is the purifier I bought