We’re minimalist travelers here at şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř—we don’t want any extra weight slowing us down as we explore the world. What we do like are practical gifts that make traveling easier, more convenient, and more fun. So our travel editors are revealing the items on their wish list this season—and the gifts they’ll be giving to their favorite travelers.

I’m definitely adding that water bottle and the Hipcamp gift card to my wish list. —Alison Osius

1. Best Gadget

AirFly Pro ($55)

At first, I was skeptical of this tiny gadget. As a lightweight packer, I refuse to schlep more chargers or adapters than absolutely necessary to survive a long-haul flight. Yet this year, my husband, tech-savvy guy that he is, insisted we try the AirFly Pro Wireless Audio Transmitter/ Receiver on our trans-Atlantic trip to England. Usually, I just use the freebie headphones flight attendants hand out. But our vacation happened to fall during the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, which we watch obsessively, and I instantly became a convert to this gizmo: a pocket-sized, 15-gram transmitter that plugs into your seat-back audio jack and Bluetooths to any wireless headphones on the market.

We watched game after game on the plane’s live TV app, and time flew by. Since we had no cords to mess with, bathroom breaks were easy, and we streamed from two screens in tandem, each able to listen with both buds. The AirFly Pro has a nice 25-hour battery life as well, and now we never fly without it. This is the perfect stocking stuffer for any frequent flyer. —Patty Hodapp, senior contributing travel editor

2. Best Fanny Pack

Yeti Sidekick Dry 1L Gear Case ($40; strap is an additional $10)

Fanny packs, in theory, should make hands-free travel easier, right? Not always. My entire life I’ve searched for the perfect pouch, only to be disappointed in the wild by their size, or lack of pockets, or uncomfy straps, or performance in poor weather. Enter the Yeti Sidekick Dry 1L Gear Case—officially everything I need and more, available to use alone or with a strap.

The waterproof technology of the exterior has kept my stuff dry on brutally rainy trips in Iceland and Ireland, and is made from similar material to that of whitewater rafts, so it can take a beating. The case also floats if I accidentally drop it in water (been there, done that on a recent fly-fishing trip). And its internal mesh pockets ensure my passport, wallet, keys, phone, lip balm, and other gear stay organized.

I’m partial to the one-liter option because it’s the ideal size for me. But if you’ve got a camera or bulky layers to protect, you may want the three or six liter. Don’t forget the Sideclick Strap (sold separately), which attaches to the bag so it doubles as a belt or sling. Now, you can carry your gear in comfort, worry free.—P.H.

3. Best Personal Item

Longchamp Le Pliage Original M Travel Bag ($205)

I always try to carry on when I’m flying. This means that my personal item has to be incredibly efficient at holding a lot but must still fit under the seat. I have spent hours searching for the perfect backpack, but nothing has ever held as much as my nylon Longchamp tote bag does, or held up to wear and tear the same way. I jam this thing with shoes, my laptop, chargers, food, my dopp kit, you name it. The wide-top shape of the bag allows it to hold more than any other while I can still cram it under the seat. It easily attaches to my Away Carry On Suitcase, too.

The Longchamp has been on a lot of plane trips with me over the last 15 years and still looks great. It folds down to nothing when you aren’t using it and also makes a great beach, gym, or day bag once you get where you’re going. Be sure to order the shoulder strap with it, or you can to get the extract size, color, and straps you want, which is what I did. —Mary Turner, Senior Brand Director

4. Best Extra Layer

Patagonia’s Torrentshell 3L Rain Jacket ($179)

I have had a version of this Patagonia rain jacket for years, and I take it on every trip. The jacket is super lightweight and packs down to nothing. It’s great for rain protection or when you need an extra layer for warmth in cold or wind. I bought mine a size up so that I could easily layer underneath it. The Torrentshell comes in men’s and women’s versions. It lasts almost forever, too.â€Äâ.°Ő.

5. Best Gift for Long-Haul Travelers

Resort Pass (from $25)

ResortPass, which allows you to pay a fee to use hotels for the day, is the perfect gift for travelers. Maybe there’s a hotel that you can’t afford, but you’d really love to spend a day there, or you have a long wait for your red-eye flight home from Hawaii after checking out of your Airbnb. This is where ResortPass becomes wonderfully handy. You can chill by a hotel pool instead of hanging out at the airport.

I searched for day passes in my hometown of Santa Fe and found some great deals, starting at $25, at beautiful properties. ResortPass partners with more than 1,700 hotels around the world and that list is constantly growing. It’s easy to purchase . How much I would have loved this in my backpacking days, when sometimes I just needed a little TLC and a hot shower . —M.T.

6. Best Day Spa for Travelers

Olympic Spa (gift cards from $100)

If you’re ever in Los Angeles—for a few days, overnight, or during a long layover—there’s an amazing women-only spa in Koreatown, and I’ve been telling everyone about it, because it is that good. doesn’t look like much from the outside, and the website isn’t going to convince you. But let me testify: this is a spotless oasis that will leave you blissed out after a couple of hours. There are three pools (saltwater, mineral water, and cold plunge), three saunas (herbal steam, red clay, and ice, the last of which was novel but not that cold), an oxygen-therapy room with a charcoal ceiling, and—my favorite—a salt halotherapy room where the warmth thoroughly seeped into my bones.

All that would be enough, but a friend recommended the Goddess treatment ($220), and that put me over the edge: a masseuse scrubbed nearly every inch of my body, from my ears to between my toes; plied my muscles down to overcooked-noodle consistency; and moisturized me to a seal-like slickness. After I spent 105 minutes on the table, the masseuse had to guide my limbs into the bathrobe and slippers. I am returning the next chance I get. Somebody get me a . —Tasha Zemke, managing editor, şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř

7. Best Phone-Camera Accessory

Joby GorillaPod Mobile Mini Tripod ($17)

I work with şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online’s astrotourism writer Stephanie Vermillion, and this past fall she recommended a tiny tripod that pairs well with smartphones. She uses her mini-tripod when shooting the northern lights and other dark-sky scenes that require long shutter-speed times with no vibrations. But honestly, I’m just tired of long-arming photos of myself and friends in beautiful places. I can tuck this accessory into my daypack—it’s about the size of a large iPhone, and weighs the same as two Hershey chocolate bars—and then set it up, adjust its flexible legs, pop my phone into its rubber jaws, set the timer, and take a snap that’s not a blatant selfie. Just what I’m looking for. —T.Z.

8. Best Gift for Nervous Flyers

Bose Noise Canceling Headphones 700 ($349)

Listening to music while flying helps lessen the anxiety I often feel, especially during takeoff, landing, and periods of turbulence. I was gifted these excellent noise-canceling headphones a few years ago, and they were comfortable over my ears and even looked cool, but, sad to say, I left them in the seat-back pocket on a leg to Paris. I’m going to have to replace them, but I have a plan to avoid paying full price: by going to Bose’s amazing , which sells returned products at a significant discount. The brand’s tech team fixes the defects, and you’d never know the items weren’t brand-new. You also still get a year warranty. The only catch is that the item you’re seeking may not be available immediately. I just checked the shop for headphones, and they’re sold out, but upon the click of a button, I’ll be notified when the next pair comes up—and you can believe I’ll wait.Ěý—T.Z.

9. Must-Have for Star Parties

BioLite HeadLamp 425 ($60)

I always travel with a headlamp, and not just for camping and being outdoors. Headlamps are tiny and easy to pack, and I’ve stayed in cabins at the Red River Gorge or in Tahoe where the rooms were so dark I needed a light to find my socks. I still have the original Biolite 330 headlamp from when it was introduced five years ago at an affordable $50: it is super light (2.4 ounces), bright, and functional; is USB rechargeable; and has an integrated design that puts the lamp flush into the headband for simplicity and comfort. It also has a strobe light for rescues and red lights for night missions.

Compared to white lights, low-intensity red ones minimizes pupil dilation, allowing better night vision; red light is also less disruptive to wildlife. Red lights are essential for star gazing, and these days everyone is going to dark-sky parks and peering at the stars, meteors, and northern lights. Recently, looking for a headlamp for my stepsister as she went off to an astrophotography class in the Tucson desert, I picked the 425. —Alison Osius, senior editor, travel

10. Best Travel Pants

The prAna Koen Pant ($95)

When I went to Abu Dhabi to see my nephew graduate from high school, my luggage was delayed for three days out of a five-day trip. So I wore the same mahogany-colored Title IX capris nearly every day as well as on all my flights, and came back loving them more than ever, which is some testament. Sadly, I later lost those red pants. Yet I hit on a match: the Koen. I bought the Koen capris (two pairs), then the Koen shorts (also two pairs), and then the pants: my new fave travel pants and apparently fave anything pants, since I just wore them to the hospital for a finger surgery.

They are lightweight, silky, stretchy, and wrinkle free, and work for anything from hiking to around town. The front pockets are flat and unobtrusive, with hidden zippers, yet deep enough to hold a phone securely if you need a quick stow, like when juggling items in the airport. The pull-on waist is ideal for comfort and upright cat naps, since it lacks zips, snaps, or external ties. The Koen is overall sleek in its lines. I am psyched that it comes in regular, short and tall versions, and am getting the long ones for my older sister, who is taller than I am and travels 70 percent of the time for her work. Don’t tell her, because it’s a surprise.—A.O.

11. Best Gift for Campers

HipCamp gift certificates (starting at $75)

Wasn’t it Clint Eastwood, he of The Eiger Sanction lore, who said, “I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth”? No, wait, Steve McQueen. Point is, with digital for booking a campsite on Hipcamp, you can give that experience. A card ushers someone into an expanding community with sites across the country and in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia. And these sites are not just for a tent in a grassy lot. They are for a yurt in the middle of a flowering meadow; they are for camping, glamping, RV spots, cabins, and canvas. The gift card never expires, nor will you ever run out of places.—A.O.

12. Best Soak With a View

Mount Princeton Hot SpringsĚý (gift cards from $50)

The old mining town of Leadville, Colorado, sits way up there at 10,000 feet, and it’s cold. Luckily within an hour you can reach any of half a dozen hot-springs resorts, some of the nicest in the state or anywhere, to warm your bones. My sister used to live in Leadville, and when I visited we often took our young sons and let them play and soak..and maybe even slow down a little. The mountain-ringed Mount Princeton Hot Springs, in Nathrop, has geothermal springs, an infinity pool, natural creekside pools, and a view of the Chalk Cliffs on the 14,197-foot peak the property is named for. It that work for day passes, lodging, and dining.—A.O.

13. Best Water Bottle for Travel

Katadyn BeFree 0.6 L Water Filter Bottle ($40)

I sure could’ve used this lightweight collapsible filtered bottle last summer for mountain hiking. On one trip with an eight-mile approach followed by a day on a peak and then the dread march out, I filled my bottles time and time again from a stream near camp, thirsty and getting careless when my filtration system took time. (Luckily I got away with it, or rather without giardia, this time.) Filtering at a rate of up to two liters of water per minute, the Katadyn is a fast and light (two ounces) system that would also be perfect for the trail runners and bow hunters in my household who don’t want to carry heavy water bottles. I would like to take the Katadyn hiking and traveling, since it’s light, packable, and makes for safe drinking.—A.O.

14. Best Reading App

Everand Subscription (from $12 per month)

Whether traveling by car or air, I always download a series of audiobooks from my Everand (formerly named Scribd) app before going. With a library of more than 1.5 million ebooks and audiobooks—plus a collection of magazines and podcasts—to choose from, I never run low on options. Often, I’ll base my pick on the destination: Desert Solitaire for a trip to Moab or A Walk in the Woods for a hiking adventure in Maine. Every time I board a flight, I pop in my earbuds and am fully entertained until we land. Or, since I like to sleep on planes, I might set Everand’s sleep timer to 30 minutes, and drift off by the time we finish takeoff. I love the app so much that I’m getting a subscription for my 14-year-old stepdaughter this year, too. —Abigail Wise, Digital Director

The post 14 Best Gift Ideas for the Traveler in Your Life appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

I just got back from a three-month trip down Mexico’s Baja peninsula. The region isn’t exactly known for known for its drinking water, but I didn’t have any issues while camping, and didn’t have to put much effort at all into sourcing clean water. And that’s thanks to a combination of three products designed by my friend—and prolific outdoor product engineer—Owen Mesdag.

Mesdag used to work for Mountain Safety Research. While there, he realized that the most common need for water filtration in this country isn’t camping, but rather people who have received boil-water advisories at home. There are hundreds of those in the U.S. per-year, impacting millions of households. So, he modified the company’s simplest filter for home use by attaching an adaptor compatible with a standard garden hose faucet on one end. The costs $40.

Why a hose faucet? It’s the only universal standard that’s used across North America. No matter if you live in a detached house or high rise apartment complex, you’ll likely find such a faucet both inside your building’s utility room, and obviously outside, too. Outdoors, you’ll find hoses at gas stations, hotels, well sites, livestock water tanks, you name it. Just screw the filter to the faucet, turn that on, and enjoy drinking water free of bacteria, protozoa, and parasites.

A few years ago, Mesdag left MSR for Swedish RV accessory brand Dometic, which has used his talent to expand into the general car camping space here in North America, with a range of practical, high-quality, affordable solutions for comfort and convenience. One of those solutions is an alternative to the traditional jerry can for water transportation and storage.

“Dude, I just reinvented water,” Mesdag told me a couple years back, when he called to tell me about the ($70). I’ve covered that product more in-depth, which you can read about here, so for the purposes of this article let’s specifically talk about its compatibility with that MSR filter, and the unique solution that creates. And relevant here is that claiming to reinvent water is a big deal, because us humans and our dogs are utterly reliant on the stuff for survival. But water is heavy, incompressible, and provides the perfect breeding ground for all manner of tiny organisms that are trying to kill us.

Mesdag designed the jug using the standard CPC fittings you’ll be familiar with from the tube connections on most water filters. That’s how the electric ($100) attaches to the jug, and how the hose underneath the jug’s lid that allows that faucet to draw water from the bottom of the jug plugs in.

Since the filter element used in the Home Emergency Water Filter was originally intended to fit in-line between a hydration bladder and drinking hose in military applications (MSR makes all field water purification gear for the U.S. military, which is why the company’s Seattle HQ contains the ), it uses those CPC fittings too.

And that means you can simply screw the Home Emergency Water Filter onto any hose faucet on the continent (and likely many elsewhere), plug it into the lid on the water jug, and fill up with clean water anywhere. And do that without opening the jug.

Note that you will need to add an additional CPC hose insert to the filter’s outlet. You can probably scrounge one from inside your gear closet. If you do need to buy one, they’re typically sold in bulk, because single items tend to be overpriced. , for example, is an absurd $12.

Keeping contaminants out of your water system is critical for trips like the one I just went on. Spending months in silty, sandy, filthy desert environments is going to leave all your stuff coated in grime. You probably don’t want any of it in your drinking water, and the connections between faucet and filter, filter and jug, and jug and tap keep it all out.

Mesdag describes the solution as, “a water vault.”

There’s a couple of obvious questions that arise here. First, what about viruses? Honestly, in North America, they’re not really something you need to worry about. Just like here in El Norte, Mexico, where officials treat the water with chlorine, which kills viruses, bacteria, and parasites. A big reason why most people in Mexico drink bottled water is because that dose of chlorine is so heavy it actually makes the water that comes out of taps taste like a swimming pool. It’s the pipes that ship that water, the trucks that haul it, and the cisterns that homes and businesses use to store it that can then introduce pathogens, and those aren’t commonly going to be viruses. Same story at untreated water sources like wells.

If you are worried about virus contamination (or plan to use the jugs to store water for periods longer than a camping trip), Mesdag suggests adding a few drops of chlorine bleach. The Centers for Disease Control recommends adding eight drops of unscented bleach per-gallon of water to disinfect it, so with these 2.9 gallon tanks, that’s 23 drops per-fill. Carrying an eyedropper bottle of bleach is easy, just note that bleach has a shelf life of one year, beyond which point it will begin to lose its potency.

Yes, it’s safe to drink water treated with bleach. I explored that topic in-depth a few years ago, after then-President Donald Trump claimed drinking bleach might work on COVID-19.

The second obvious question is why not just buy aqua purificada? Bottled water is available at virtually every gas station, convenience store, and food emporium in the world, but it comes in plastic containers, and throwing those away after pouring water into your jugs just seems wasteful.

And, what about human-powered camping trips, or just adventures away from your boat or truck? Easy, just fill up your hydration bladder or Nalgene from the purified water in your jug, grab the filter body to connect in-line with your bladder and drinking hose, or pocket that bottle of bleach before hitting the trail.

Do you really need the $100 Dometic tap? Three of the jugs just so happen to fit the awkward space in the back of my truck defined by the tie down points on my Decked drawers, and the mounting clamps my uses to brace my truck bed. That 8.7 gallons of water proved just enough to get me, my wife, and my three thirsty dogs through a two-night weekend, while cooking and doing dishes, without any thought of rationing. Skipping dishes would have easily increased that to three nights or more. A big part of that frugality came from the tap, which delivers water at precisely one-liter per-minute, and automatically shuts off after one minute. The capacitive switch on its top also makes turning it off with an elbow or the back of your hand easy, if you’re brushing your teeth or holding a dirty dish. So, while not strictly necessary (you can simply pour from a jug or use the included mechanical tap), it ends up helping you carry less water.

That water will be totally clean, safe to drink, and you’ll be able to carry as little of it as possible, thanks to Mesdag’s clever designs.

The post Don’t Get Diarrhea: How to Keep Water Clean While Camping appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

In Fiji and 99 other countries, the same Sawyer water filtration technology used by outdoor adventurers is helping to solve the global water crisis. Watch to learn about how the partnership between and is improving accessibility to clean water, and read more in One of the World’s Most Widespread Health Problems Has a Simple Solution.

The post Sawyer Filters are Changing Lives by Improving Access to Clean Water appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

An estimated worldwide lack access to clean water. The causes for this global crisis vary—polluted water sources, resource management issues, climate-related drought, and poverty. The effects, however, are universal: drinking contaminated water leads to waterborne illnesses and, for the most vulnerable, death.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The same technology that hikers and adventurers have used for decades to filter backcountry water offers an easy and affordable solution. The answer is in our packs.Ěý

So, how have recreational water filters become a critical tool in solving a global health crisis? Sawyer, a trusted name in portable water filtration for 22 years, built a humanitarian-aid program that runs parallel to its retail business. You may not realize it, but the water filter you might take on your next backpacking trip is intertwined in Sawyer’s mission to solve the global water crisis in our lifetimes. The company partners with nonprofits to bring clean water to millions of people worldwide. Backpacker and şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř readers Lauren Hirsch, Ryan Unger, Gabby Beckford, and Nate Dodge joined the Sawyer team on the ground in Viti Levu, Fiji, to see one of these partnerships in action.

Fiji’s Water Crisis

, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing border-to-border clean water to Fiji, was one of Sawyer’s first international partners. Since 2008, the organization has been working to bring clean water to everyone in Fiji without access to treated water—nearly 50 percent of the country’s population when the project began.

Fiji’s water crisis isn’t about lack of water. It’s about a lack of clean water. Across the country’s 300-plus islands, nearly every village has access to freshwater from dams or wells, or directly from plentiful rivers and streams. The problem? Almost all of these water sources are contaminated by human and animal activity. “I was raised in a village [in Fiji], and we always had a water problem,” says Praveen Chand, pastor at Anand Assembly of God and a Give Clean Water volunteer. “I remember drinking contaminated water as a small boy because we had no way to keep our water source clean. The dirty water affected the health of my whole village. Today, when I see the water filters we bring to these communities, I think about how different my life could have been if I had access to clean water as a child.”

Chand is part of the Give Clean Water team that spent a week with Hirsch, Unger, Beckford, and Dodge, showing them the diverse villages the nonprofit serves throughout Fiji. They traveled along bumpy dirt roads and upriver deep into the interior to the Melita Settlement, a native Fijian community accessible only by boat.Ěý

“As a thru-hiker, I’ve come across a fair share of questionable water sources,” says Unger. “I always rely on filters, like the Sawyer squeeze, to make it possible for me to drink from just about anywhere on the trail. Dirty water, water sources shared with cows that are more mud than water—you name it, I’ve used a filter in it. So it was pretty special to see that same filter in action changing lives on the ground here in Fiji.”

The water crisis in Fiji isn’t limited to remote villages, however. Namaqumaqua Village is located on the Coral Coast—a popular tourist destination on Fiji’s main island—just minutes from the main highway and within walking distance of two resorts. Compared to villages in the interior, Namaqumaqua has access to modern conveniences—stores, public transportation, and government amenities. But even this centrally located village struggles with access to clean water. During the rainy season, from mid-October to April, treated water supplies are regularly contaminated or washed out.

“People need water every day to survive, so sometimes they don’t have the option to care about hygiene or how clean it is,” says Saniteri Siga, a village elder in Namaqumaqua. “For the past 50 years, dirty water has been the main problem my village has faced. These water filters will change the lives of the children and everyone living here.”

“Miracle Machines”

The development of portable water filters got a kick-start by reports of giardia in North American backcountry water sources in the 1970s, during the first boom in trekking and camping. Water filtration soon became a part of mainstream outdoor recreation, and water filtration systems became increasingly lightweight and affordable. Today, outdoor adventurers use filtration systems for outdoor pursuits big and small, and many own a variety of filters for different uses. For gearheads, the nitty-gritty details about how different are required reading.Ěý

Sawyer introduced its proprietary Hollow Fiber Membrane filters to recreational consumers in 2001. Seven years later, the company developed its . The same water filtration technology backpackers rely on in the wilderness could now provide clean water to communities that lacked access to purified water.

“The concept is simple,” explains Darrel Larson, founder and board member of Give Clean Water and Sawyer’s international director. “With a bit of tubing, a few connecting pieces, and a Sawyer filter, anyone could convert an ordinary five-gallon bucket into a low-cost filtration system.” This “miracle machine,” as one Give Clean Water staffer called the bucket system, removes sediment, bacteria, protozoa, cysts, and even 100 percent of microplastics from contaminated water. And when properly maintained, one filter can provide more than enough clean water to meet the needs of a household for ten to 15 years or longer.

A Case Study in Border-to-Border Clean Water

Sawyer’s portable, low-cost water filtration systems made the goal of nationwide clean water for Fiji and other countries attainable.Ěý

With the help of the Fijian Ministry of Health and GIS software, Give Clean Water mapped areas requiring clean water across the country and formed a plan to distribute Sawyer filters to every household in need. Staff members personally deliver filtration systems to each village and teach households how to use and maintain the filtration system. After the initial visit, the health department follows up multiple times to ensure proper usage and to collect GIS data on health improvements.

The results? Before receiving Sawyer filters, nearly 24 percent of families reported health issues related to consuming contaminated water. After consistent use of the filters, only 0.8 percent of households reported health issues. Adults missed fewer workdays and reported more consistent school attendance for children. Families also saved up to $600 per year—one-eighth of an average Fijian family’s annual income—on purchased water and medical costs related to waterborne illness.

To date, Give Clean Water has installed Sawyer filters in 20,000 Fijian homes, schools, and medical clinics. Fiji is on track to be one of the first developing countries with nationwide access to clean water. () More than 200 Sawyer partner organizations in 100 countries have modeled clean water initiatives after Sawyer’s well-tested systems and data-backed learnings. Sawyer dedicates 90 percent of profits to support clean water projects around the world. Together, these organizations have provided sustainable access to clean water to more than 27.5 million people worldwide. “Every time you buy a Sawyer product, you are changing the world,” says Larson.Ěý

That sounds like a lot—and it is—but with 2.1 billion people in need, there’s a long way to go. But as Larson says, “We have the technology. We have great partners on the ground to make it happen. And we want you to join us in changing the world.”

Founded in 1984, has been at the forefront of innovation in outdoor protection, from water filtration to insect repellent solutions. Not only are Sawyer’s filters one of the most popular on the trail, but they are also being used in over 100 developing countries to provide people with clean drinking water. Ninety percent of the company’s profits are donated towards similar projects, domestically and around the world.

The post One of the World’s Most Widespread Health Problems Has a Simple Solution appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Nobody’s ever said water duty is their favorite part of hiking. With the ($45), though, the task just got a whole lot easier.

This affordable, compact, 3.3-ounce kit comes with two components: a durable, one-liter soft-sided reservoir—helpfully labeled “dirty”—and a hollow-fiber filter that’s small enough to fit inside a toilet-paper roll. To get clean water, simply fill the reservoir (a hard plastic handle helps with skimming it through streams and lakes), screw the filter onto the top, and squeeze. The QuickDraw’s 0.2-micron pores sift out bacteria and protozoa (but not viruses, which are removed only by purifiers). And believe us, this thing is fast: by applying constant pressure on the reservoir, we filled a one-liter Nalgene in about 20 seconds—the fastest rate on the market for something this light and inexpensive. “Even when I was hiking with groups, I brought this filter rather than a larger gravity model,” one editor said. “It’s so small that it can fit in a hipbelt pocket, and it’s the most efficient filtration system I’ve ever used.”

The filter itself rests inside a durable ABS-plastic housing, so dropping it won’t destroy the sensitive fibers inside. The dirty-water reservoir is built to last thanks to its thick plastic construction, and we haven’t seen any holes in ours after a full season of use, a far cry from other, flimsier reservoirs.

Screw threads lock the filter onto the reservoir as well as other Platypus products, Smartwater bottles, and 28-millimeter plastic bottles. (You can also drink straight from the clean-water side of the filter.) Our test unit slowed down only once, and a simple backflush returned it to its regular flow. With the QuickDraw, filtering water is over in a blink, and you can get back to what you’re out there for: enjoying your hike.

The post Editor’s Choice: Platypus QuickDraw Microfilter System appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

To study and raise awareness of microplastic pollution, the women of eXXpedition are willing to go to the ends of the earth—literally. The nonprofit organization, founded in 2014 to organize research expeditions for women studying ocean sustainability, is the subject of şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř TV’s latest series, Sirens of the Sea. In 2019, the group set off on a four-year, all-femaleĚývoyage from Plymouth, UK, to SĂŁo Miguel, in the Azores, stopping at remote regions of the world’s oceans along the way to gather data on the increasing crisis of ocean plastics. The show focuses on the first leg of theirĚýjourney, culminating in a stop at the North Atlantic Gyre, where they tested water and ocean life to diagnose the spread and impact of human refuse in the ocean. The series follows eXXpedition cofounder Emily Penn and the rest of the 14-woman crew, emphasizing the dedication and resilience of the researchers aboard,Ěýwhile also confronting the perils of sailing across the Atlantic.

How to watch Sirens of the Sea:

Streaming Sunday, May 9 at 8 P.M. EDT on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř TV+, available on Dish, RedBox, the Roku Channel, Samsung TVPlus, Sling, Stirr, Xumo, Vizio WatchFree, and the free şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř TV app.

The post An All-Women Voyage to End Ocean Pollution appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

The world of backcountry water filters is a surprisingly scary one. As someone who’s had giardia andĚýnorovirusĚýand picked something up in Peru 15 years ago that may still be hanging out in my intestines, I can tell you that the stakes are high.ĚýThere is noĚýgoverning body regulating the efficacy of physical filters. (The FDA approves onlyĚýchemical water purification products, like or iodine tablets.)ĚýThough there are testing standards for water filters used by the military—I highly suggest looking into ,Ěýwhich some brands use—they are not mandated for civilian products.

Without a unified standard, it’s important to be careful and do your researchĚýwhen purchasing a filter. But if you want to skip those steps, I suggest the . I’ve used it to purify hundreds of gallons of water, and it’s ideal for group pursuits in the backcountry or in emergency scenarios.

In September, my wife, my three-year-old daughter, Jojo, and I evacuated when southern Oregon’s Almeda Fire started less than a mile from our home. My wife and Jojo took off immediately while I stayed to pack up the important papers, the most treasured stuffed animals, andĚýtheĚýGravityWorks system. I was driving off into a lot of unknowns that morning, but I can’t overstate how comforting it felt to throw the filterĚýinto my car over the haphazardly packed suitcases. The fear of not knowing whether we’d come back to a standing house (we were the lucky ones who did) was significantly mitigated by the knowledge thatĚýwe’d at least have access to drinkable water as long as we could find a spot by a river. That peace of mindĚýis priceless.

The GravityWorks 4.0 is remarkably easy to use. I got my first oneĚýin May 2014 and couldn’t believe I hadn’t made the investment previously. I was notorious among my kayaking buddies for how reckless I was with my gut fauna as a young man, which really caught up with me in my mid-twenties (see: intestinal distress rap sheet above). Once I started using this model, I couldn’t believe how much diarrhea, vomiting, and general malaise I had put myself through to avoid the simple three-minute process of filtering my water. The design is so straightforward that I would trust filtering my water to a precocious third grader. Simply fill the clearly labeled “DIRTY” bladder with unfiltered water, elevate it aboveĚýthe “CLEAN” one, and make sure the filter arrow marking the “FLOW” of the filter is going from “CLEAN” to “DIRTY.” That’s it.

The GravityWorks 4.0Ěýalso filters water lightning-fast,ĚýwhichĚýmakes it great for groups. This filter takes about a minute to set up and goes through more than 1.5Ěýliters per minute. (Multitasking is easy if you find the right tree branches to hang the bags on.)ĚýI can filterĚýwater for several peopleĚý(and pound a liter or so myself) in under 20 minutes whenever we reach a water source. With this system, I took my in-laws on their first backpacking trip in the summer of 2014 and kept everyone in ourĚýseven-person groupĚýhydrated and equipped with cooking water with very littleĚýeffort on my part. While you can find lighter filters out there—this one isĚýalmost 12 ounces—the extra weight is worth it when you need to clean a lot of water.

But it’s the least noticeable feature of this filter that’s the most important. It meets all EPA and NSF guidelines to remove bacteria and protozoa, though there is no legal requirement for filters to do so. This means I don’t have to stress about getting a nasty bug if I use it stateside. (It doesn’t filter out viruses, like chemical treatments and my international-tripĚýfavorite, theĚýĚý($350), but pretty much any water I am going to filter from in the United StatesĚýis not likely to have those issues.) That level of trust is key when dealing with a resource as precious as water.

The post The High-Capacity Water Filter You Need for Base Camp appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Halfway through a a few years ago, my tripmates and I ran into a problem with our drinking water. Thanks to the frigidĚýtemperatures, we’d burned through all of the batteries for our ultraviolet purifier. When we switched to our backup mechanical filter, it immediately clogged with glacial silt—and then, when we tried to force it, it broke. We were above the treeline, so finding enough fuel to boil all our water would have been somewhere between inconvenient and impossible.

What’s amazing to me, in hindsight, is how long it took us to come up with the radical alternative: just drink it. I’m a rule-follower and a risk-minimizer, and I side with Wes SilerĚýon the importance of purifying your water when you’re in the middle of nowhere. So I was interested to read Ěýfor water disinfection, which were assembled by a team led by Howard Backer of the California Emergency Medical Services Authority and published this fall in Wilderness and Environmental Medicine.

The guidelines offer a comprehensive look at the evidence for when, why, and how you should disinfect your water. Here are some of the key points.

Beware of Cows

To figure out how risky a water source is, you need to know what’s upstream. A stream that drains from a spring, glacier, or snowpack is likely to be low-risk. If there’s any form of upstream human activity, be worried—especially if it’s agriculture. Several studies have found that cows are the leading source of waterborne disease in North America, since they excrete E. coli and salmonella. It’s also a good idea, the guidelines suggest, to treat water in developing countries and during disaster situations that affect normal water treatment.

Does that mean that you’re in the clear if you can’t hear any mooing? Well, the guidelines recommend treating all water in wilderness settings, but they make a distinction on the strength of the evidence. In areas with “nearby agricultural use, animal grazing, or upstream human activity,” treating water is backed by evidence that gets a grade of 1A: “strong recommendation, high-quality evidence.” Treating water in “wilderness settings without evidence of domestic animal and little to no wildlife or human activity” is also recommended, but the evidence is only 2B: “weak recommendation, moderate-quality evidence.” Your choice.

Clarify and/or Disinfect

If you’ve got a bottle of turbid swamp water, there are several things you can do to make it look, smell, and taste better. The simplest is just letting it sit for an hour or so, allowing sand and silt to settle to the bottom. This “clarifies” the water—i.e. makes it look clearer—but it’s not sufficient to remove the microbes that can make you sick. There are various other options for clarification, including using activated carbon to suck up contaminants, or adding coagulants like lime to make smaller suspended particles clump together for easier removal. None of these approaches actually disinfects water, although for really dirty water it may be necessary to clarify it before you try disinfecting it.

Actually disinfecting water involves getting rid of three key scourges: bacteria (like E. coli), protozoa (like giardia), and viruses (like norovirus). Again, you’ve got various options:

Heat: Boil the water, and you’ll be fine. Actually, all you need is a few seconds above about 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius) to kill bacteria, protozoa, and viruses. That means even at 19,000 feet, where water boils at 178 F (81 C), boiling will do the trick. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend boiling for one minute, mainly to account for differences in what people count as “boiling.” Anything more than that is overkill.

If you’re low on fuel, you may be able to get away with lower heat for a longer time—even, in some cases, hot tap water that’s been sitting in a hot water tank for 30 minutes or more. This gets dicey to judge, but if you can’t keep your finger in it for more than five seconds, it’s probably close 140 F.

Ultraviolet: This is my technique of choice these days (I use ), mainly for the convenience. This approach also takes care of all relevant pathogens; the caveat is that water needs to be relatively clear so the UV waves actually hit all the organisms. If it’s too cloudy, you should pre-filter it.

It’s also possible to improvise on UV disinfection by leaving water in a clear plastic bottle in the sun for at least four hours. That sounds nice in theory, but evidence that it actually works in practice is a little more mixed (and fate doesn’t often grant me four consecutive hours of sunshine on my trips anyway), so it’s more of an emergency back-up.

Filtering: My standby before I got a SteriPen was an , which I still carry with me as a backup on trips. The relatively cheap old-school model I have filters out particles as small as 0.2 microns, which takes care of bacteria and protozoa but not all viruses, which tend to be smaller. That’s a trade-off I’m willing to deal with, since the risks I’m mostly trying to guard against on backcountry trips are things like giardia and E. coli,Ěýas opposed to, say hepatitis A and poliovirus. That said, even 0.2 micron filters tend to remove between 99 and 99.9 percent of viruses present in water, since the viruses often stick to larger particles and get filtered out.

Here’s a graph from the paper that shows (from the bottom) the typical size of bad stuff in the water and (from the top) the size of particles removed by different types of filter device.

The filter I have, with a pore size of 0.2 microns, is considered microfiltration. But there are other easily portable products on the market that now offer ultrafiltration, like Ěýor , that also block viruses. If I were buying a new filter, I’d probably opt for something like that. The best option depends in part on what you plan to be doing: the gravity filter makes sense if you’ll be spending a reasonable amount of time in camp. If I’m going to be on the move most of the day, I prefer a quicker and more compact option.

In a pinch, you can improve the quality of water by filtering it through sand, though it won’t catch everything. One emergency suggestion from the paper for the aftermath of a natural disaster or non-backcountry travel in areas without reliable water treatment: fill a 5.3-gallon (20-liter) bucket with about 4 inches (10 cm) of gravel, then a layer of cotton cloth held in place by some wire mesh, then 9 inches (23 cm) of sand. Make a hole in the bottom of the bucket to let the “clean” water out.

Chemicals: Both iodine and chlorine do the job fairly well. The one exception is certain protozoa: iodine and chlorine can handle giardia, but not cryptosporidium or cyclospora. When I first started canoeing almost 30 years ago, I used to use . It works, but iodine has fallen out of favor because no one is really sure that it won’t with prolonged use. Chlorine tabs also work, without that hypothetical downside.

Both these options give you water that some people find tastes and smells a little off. That said, I used chlorine tabs on a three-week trekking trip in Nepal because the logistics of filtering would have been more complicated, given that we were often getting water from a tap rather than a river or lake. (That was before I got the UV purifier.)

It’s Not Just the Water

On that trip in the Yukon, after six days of drinking straight from the river, none of us got sick. There’s definitely an argument to be made that if you’re deep enough in the backcountry, and high enough that you’re close to the source of whatever water you plan to drink, you can skip the whole water purification thing. As Ethan Linck , the real culprit for backcountry illness is often bad (or nonexistent) hand-washing after crapping in the woods.

Personally, even if I head back to that same uber-remote Yukon river, I’ll plan to bring a couple of water disinfection options—probably UV plus a ceramic filter, since that’s what I’m used to. On trips closer to home, I’m not in the mountains, so it’s impossible to know how far the water I’m drinking has traveled. That makes purifying is a no-brainer. But I’m also a convert to another innovation that a friend introduced me to a decade ago: I keep a bottle of Purell tucked into the center tube of the toilet-paper roll.

My book, , with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, is now available. For more, join me on Ěýand , and sign up for the Sweat Science .

The post The Science of Purifying Backcountry Water appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Melting snow for drinking water isn’t as easy as it sounds.ĚýIn this video, Wes Siler shows you the quickest way, in case you have to do it. (Pro tip: carry a fast-acting, ultralight filter, like the , even when there’s snow on the ground.)

The post How to Boil Snow for Drinking Water appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Captain Chris Ludford puts his table right in the water. I’m using the word “table” loosely here—it’s a bunch of metal oyster cages stacked on top of each other, with a stained piece of wood on top. His guests stand around this table, wearing fisherman waders and rubber boots while Ludford shucks them oysters, one after the other, each pulled from the Lynnhaven RiverĚýin eastern Virginia, the same water they’re all standing in. This is the culminating event of Ludford’s farm tour, where guests spend an afternoon learning about the history of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay and see firsthand how heĚýgrows themĚýin cages in the brackish waters. But eating these oysters, shucked by the man who grows them himself, is easily the highlight of the tour.

“It’s like I’ve got a raw barĚýright there on the water,” Ludford says. “And I can barely keep up with demand. Between these farm tours and the accounts where I sell my oysters, it’s like a gold rush right now. Oysters are hot.”

Oyster farmsĚýlike the one Ludford runs in the Chesapeake Bay, as entrepreneurs lease farmable acres from the state and grow oysters in cages to meet an insatiable demand from consumers. And here’s what’s interesting: this kind of aquacultureĚýis actually good for the environment. While aquaculture can be , the general consensus from scientists studying Chesapeake Bay is that farming oysters is making the bay healthier by helping remove pollutants. Translation: the more of them you eat, the better it is for the environment.

The Chesapeake Bay is the world’s second-largest estuary, a 64,000-square-mile body of waterĚýwhose shores touchĚýsix different states in the center of the East Coast. ItsĚýsheltered waters used to be littered with wild oysters. Records from the first European explorers in the early 1600s referenced having to navigate around massive oyster reefs, andĚýoysters pulled from the bay and roasted were integral to the survival of those American settlers. But decades of overharvesting, pollution, and disease reduced the wild-oyster population to just 1 percentĚýof its historic numbers over the last century. It’s a story that’s been repeated all over the world, as 85 percentĚýof all shellfish populations have been decimated.

“Watermen just pulled too many oysters out of the water,” Ludford says. “Pollution and disease didn’t help, but the biggest problem was overharvesting. They hacked away the reefs.”

But oysters are on the rise again in the bay through a mix of artificial-reef restoration projectsĚýand innovative farming techniques, like those on display at Pleasure House Oysters, that have farmers growing the bivalves in metal cages just below the surface. The rate of oyster farming in Maryland’s sectionĚýof the Chesapeake Bay since 2012, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. And that’s a good thing, because oysters are like environmental scrubbers:Ěýeach oneĚýcan filter up to 50 gallons of water per day, removing nitrogen and phosphorous from the water, the two biggest pollutants in the bay.

“Oysters are these amazing animals that can do all kinds of cool stuff,” says Mark Bryer, Chesapeake Bay program director for theĚý. “The filtration benefits of oysters are off the charts.”

The reefs that oysters establish as they grow become habitat that attracts multiple other species of shellfish and fish, all of which help contribute to a healthy ecosystemĚýand make oysters a keystone species for estuaries like the Chesapeake. Because of the oyster’s importance, the Nature ConservancyĚýhas several ongoing large-scale oyster-reef restoration projects in the bay, with a goal ofĚýrestoringĚýwild reefs in ten of its key tributaries by 2025.

The Nature Conservancy has already restored 693 acres of reefs in the Chesapeake Bay, mostly in Maryland, andĚýnow it’s shifting focus to the Virginia side of the water. The goal is to restore 428 acres of oyster reefs in the Piankatank RiverĚýby 2025, which would make it the largest oyster-restoration project in the world. It’s unlikely that wild-oyster populations will ever reach their historical levels again (Maryland’s Department of Natural ResourcesĚý in itsĚýpart of the bay declined by more than half in the last 20 years, from 600 million market-size oysters in 1999 to 300 million in 2018), but the hope is to create enough wild-oyster reefs in the bay that the population becomes self-sustaining.

While the Nature Conservancy has been restoring wild reefs, it hasĚýalso been studying how commercial oyster farms affect the bay’s water quality. ItĚýrecentlyĚýreleased a new studyĚýshowing that these aquaculture projects hold promise; a five-acre aquaculture operation offers the filtering equivalent ofĚýan acre of wild-oyster reefs.

“What we learned is that these farms are a net positive to the system,”Ěýsays Andy Lacatell, Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay program director for the Nature Conservancy, who spearheaded the study on aquaculture. “The oysters they’re growing are making a contribution to cleaning the bay. Aquaculture isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s part of the solution. There’s a benefit to having those oysters in the water.”

Meanwhile, these industrial operations are coexisting in the bay alongside large-scale oyster-reef restoration projects. The best example is in Maryland’s Harris Creek, where 350 acres of wild reefs have been restored in recent years, but an oyster-advisory commission has also set aside a network of leasable acres specifically for aquaculture, leaving a buffer between the farmable leases and the artificial reefs, which cannot be harvested.

“Chesapeake Bay is ground zero for oyster restoration,” Bryer says. “We have the largest native-oyster restoration project on the planet, and the aquaculture industry has quintupled in the last five years. People are using the bay as a model to jump-start restoration and aquaculture projects in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the Gulf Coast.”

It’s not all roses, though. While wild-oyster reef restorations and aquaculture farms can coexist, Ěýrelated to bothĚýin the Chesapeake Bay. Wealthy landownersĚýdon’t want to see the commercial cages from theirĚýbackyards. And oyster farming also limits recreation and boating.

On the West Coast, the National Audubon Society ĚýCalifornia’s Humboldt Bay Harbor District because of a spike in oyster-farming leases that could negatively impact eelgrass,Ěýwhich might ultimately harm migratory birds and fish populations. Fish rely on eelgrass as habitat, while birds look to it as a food source. The Audubon Society is concerned that there are no checks and balances in place to regulate the immense growth in aquaculture in the Humboldt Bay, where the state doesn’t oversee new aquaculture leases.

“It’s true that the oyster industry has helped clean up the water in certain estuaries, but there are other environmental issues of using natural areas for industrial use,” says Anna Weinstein, the Audubon Society’s marine program director. “Audubon supports well-sited leases, but there needs to be balance, and there needs to be protections for our seagrasses, which nurture our fishes, crabs, and birds.”

Lacatell agrees. “More than 50 percent of the world’s seafood comes from aquaculture now. In some places, that’s a good thing, in some places, it’s not a good thing. If the oysters are grown responsibly, eat them. Increase the demand, increase the value of an oyster. This is a rare food product that is doing a really good thing for the environment.”

The post Eat More Oysters. It’s Good for the Environment. appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.