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Best Water Filters

Clean drinking water is an incredibly important consideration for any trip into the backcountry. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing a stomach parasite (we have, it’s awful), then you already know how critical clean drinking water is. If you haven’t, good! Let’s keep it that way.

For any extended trip into the wilderness you’ll want a treatment method for cleaning your drinking water. But when you start shopping for a good filter or purifier, you’ll quickly find that there are A LOT of different products out there.

We put together this guide to explain key treatment method differences and to share our personal favorite products. We’ve spent hundreds of hours researching and testing these tools, so we hope you find this information helpful.

LAST UPDATED

November 14, 2022

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Clever Hiker

Media Mentions from Clever Hiker

CleverHiker.com is a website dedicated to providing knowledge, skills, and gear recommendations for lightweight backpacking adventures. We make tutorial videos, gear reviews, and in-depth trip guides to make backpacking easier for everyone.

We're Dave and Annie, the gear nerds behind Cleverhiker.com. Dave is a thru-hiker, Eagle Scout, and nature nut who's trekked every continent on the planet. Annie is a "retired" teacher who swapped out the classroom for wilderness adventures. We built CleverHiker.com to help share our backpacking knowledge, inspire people to get outdoors, and help conserve our wild spaces.

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MEDIA MENTIONS

A 20% DEET Premium Controlled-Release Lotion will work well against mosquitoes, but Dr. Zimring says he prefers the 20% Picaridin lotion since it also protects against ticks, gnats, chiggers, and flies. (In both instances, he recommends Sawyer brand.)

Rachel Schultz
Editorial Director

MEDIA MENTIONS

Part of spending time outside means battling ticks, mosquitoes, and other biting insects. For this, Nelson swears by permethrin.

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MEDIA MENTIONS

And out of the products we tested, Dr. Zeichner highly recommends Sawyer Products 20% Picaridin Insect Repellent.

Samson McDougall