My favorite water bottle to use during my trips is this Seychelle bottle. We buy them from Amazon for abut $35USD and it is worth every penny.

During my first trip we used bottles of water that we purchased in country. Hydration is key for my teams as we do hard physical labor in the heat all day. Water born illnesses can really ruin a trip and create all kinds of issues we don’t want to have, especially in a foreign country. Using these water bottles was convenient and helped prevent the illnesses, but created other problems. The children would see the bottles and come running and begging for them, sometimes trying to look through the garbage to find them. Village leaders had asked us not to give the bottles to the children, so it created a lot of sad faces. We did refill the bottles as much as possible, but with a large team using water bottles for a week it created a lot of waste. The footprint we were leaving was not what I wanted. I love learning from mistakes and finding better options.

After that first experience, we switched to the Seychelle bottles. The filtration system in the bottles allowed us to fill the bottles from the village boreholes. This made drinking clean water so much easier. When we would travel to other villages, we could simply fill our bottle and go. They will clip easily onto a daypack or belt making it easy to always have it available. When we would tour or travel in country, we would then be able to fill our bottles with water from boreholes the prior year’s team had donated. We also use these bottles when we go to the safari. It was a great win/win solution. I now use the same water bottle on hiking, kayaking and other outdoor experiences because I know I will allways have clean water.