Bottled Water when Traveling: To buy or Not to Buy?

Buying bottled water while traveling is always a dilemma for me.  On the one hand, I would never buy bottled water in my own city or country, and thankfully, I am fortunate enough to live in a country where I don't need to.  As Canadians, we ought to count our blessings because almost all of us are lucky enough to have safe, clean drinking tap water available to us pretty much for free!

On the other hand, when traveling overseas drinking tap water in say Nepal or India is maybe not such a safe idea especially when your body is not accustomed to it. But I am still torn. Besides considering the ludicrous amount of energy and materials that get used up into making bottled water I have to consider the waste I will leave behind while in these countries, which is something I want to keep at the very minimum. So, on the one hand I don't want to buy bottled water while I travel but on the other, I really, really don't want to get sick either. So where do I go from here?

photo source

Well, I went to Mountain Equipment Co-cop actually, and found what I hope will be a great solution. I purchased a water bottle with its own filtration system, which came highly recommended to me by a fellow traveler who lived in Asia for a year.  She suggested I use the pristine microbiological filter water bottle, which even though is made of plastic, it is BPA free and reusable.  So, I am giving it a try.  After reading  mixed reviews on the mec website I made sure to test my bottle.  I wanted to ensure that a) it worked and b) the filter wasn't going to break.

So far, so good.

Although I can't promise myself that I will never buy bottled water during this trip through Asia, I can at the very least reduce the amount of bottles I buy, therefore reducing the waste I produce and know that I at least have an emergency back up filtered water bottle handy.

Cheers to not getting sick! (Fingers crossed)

xo
SL

To learn more about why plastic water bottles are evil, here's a great video by Annie Leonard, creator and founder of The Story of Stuff.

The Story of Bottled Water