“We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.” – Anne Marie Bonneau

Our Independent Review of Water-to-Go

Say goodbye to even more single-use plastic by travelling with this lightweight water bottle with filter by Water-to-Go. You’ll save money and the planet! Enjoy safe drinking water anytime, anywhere with this easy to use filtered water bottle. Read on to discover the multiple benefits of travelling with a Water-to-Go bottle, how easy they are to use and what water sources you can safely drink from when carrying one.

For the past year or so, we have been searching for a great travel alternative to buying single-use plastic water bottles. Sure, we have reusable water bottles that we carry on all our trips which we try to fill up with safe drinking water as much as possible. But ultimately, when you’re in countries where the tap water is not safe to drink, or you’re out on the road for days on end with no access to clean drinking water, plastic single-use bottles, even if it is the super large ones, end up being a necessity. We were very excited to discover Water-to-Go before a recent trip to Thailand. Finally, a solution that helps us completely avoid single-use plastic bottles whilst travelling.

Over the past week in Thailand, Karen was thrilled to refuse no fewer than 56 single-use plastic water bottles. This was made possible by carrying a 50cl Water-to-Go bottle with a built in filter that removes 99.9% of bacteria, protozoa, viruses and cysts. It also reduces fluoride, heavy metals and chlorine as well as bad taste and odour. So what was the Water-to-Go experience like?

You may also like these 5 Ways to Reduce Single-Use Plastic.

Is Water-to-Go Easy To Use?

We have to admit, when we first got our lightweight water bottle with filter by Water-to-Go home and had to activate the filter, we thought hang on, is this going to be too difficult to use? After following the initial instructions, we realised of course that it is super easy! Simply invert the filter in water for 15 minutes before use to ensure it is fully activated and ready to filter safe drinking water for you. Once this is done, you can choose to start the small time strip provided. This indicates how far through the 8 weeks of safe use your filter is.

Each filter lasts for 8 weeks or 130 litres of water. After this, filters are easy to replace so you can continue to use your Water-to-Go bottle. Once the initial filter set up is done, the bottle is as simple to use as filling up water from the tap and drinking. Would we use Water-to-Go again? Yes! In fact, we can’t imagine ever travelling without it.

Using Your Lightweight Water Bottle with Filter in Airports

So pretty much every airport limits liquids in hand luggage to 100ml, right? Despite this, you can still travel on planes and through airports with Water-to-Go, avoiding the need to pay excessively for bottled drinking water and refusing single-use plastic at the same time. Simply empty out any water already in your bottle before passing through airport security and re-fill on the other side before you board your plane from any public bathroom sink. When there is water in your Water-to-Go bottle, it is best kept upright in your bag or just in your hand because of the small air valve positioned on the top.

When flying with your Water-to-Go bottle, you may find the air pressure pushes water in the filter up through the drinking piece. This water is safe to drink and is a normal reaction with the cabin pressure experienced on flights. To avoid a spillage in this situation, keep the water level low during flights and top up more regularly from the airline’s bathroom tap. Yep, you can even refuse single-use plastic bottles during flights with Water-to-Go!

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Which Size Water Bottle Is Best?

Because the 50cl bottle is super lightweight and created with a slick contour that’s great for carrying around in your hand, it’s our favourite Water-to-Go bottle. However, you can choose the larger 75cl bottles if you wish. In our experience, a larger bottle isn’t necessary because of how frequently you can fill up from typically unsafe drinking water sources. In 35-40 degree heat in Thailand, we found we filled up a full 50cl bottle every 1 to 2 hours, about as regularly as we needed to use the bathroom. Ideal then because every time we found a public bathroom, we also found a sink with running water. Yep, you can drink all tap water with Water-to-Go!

The Challenges of Travelling With Water-to-Go

The only water you should not drink with Water-to-Go is salt water. Therefore, the only real challenge when travelling is being out at sea for the day. We recently enjoyed a speedboat day tour around Ang Thong National Marine Park off the coast of Koh Samui. Knowing we’d be surrounded by salt water but not be able to filter it, we were concerned that we’d eventually need to say yes to single-use plastic bottles. Our boat was small and did not have a sink onboard. However, it did have a hose at the back of the boat with fresh water for rinsing off ocean salt after swimming, snorkelling and diving. Perfect! Simply fill up from a hose like this and continue to refuse single-use plastic bottles even on days spent in the middle of the ocean.

What Does The Filtered Water Taste Like?

Everyone continually asked if the filtered water tasted disgusting. Honestly, we found every single water source, from the boat hose to public sink taps, tasted like regular safe drinking water. Water-to-Go even filters bad tastes and odour from the water so that you really don’t even notice the difference. Avoid warm water if you can as the filter cannot change the water temperature, another great reason to fill up little and often in hot countries instead of carrying a larger bottle which will be heated up by the sun the longer it sits around.

The only other downside to using the lightweight water bottle with filter by Water-to-Go instead of plastic bottled water was not being able to drink very cold refrigerated water when the outdoor heat was intense. We found a way around this by using the ice offered to us in restaurants and bars. Simply, put just ice in the bottle without having to worry where it is sourced from, wait a few minutes for it to start to melt and drink the filtered ice water happily and safely.

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What Water Can I Drink With Water-to-Go?

Unless its salt water, you can literally drink any water using this filtered bottle. This makes Water-to-Go ideal for days at sea or on the beach, rural areas like jungles, rainforests and deserts, forms of public transport like aeroplanes, airports, trains and boats, and even hotel rooms and apartments in areas where drinking the tap water isn’t advised. Simply fill up in any bathroom sink or outdoor tap. You can even drink from streams, waterfalls and rivers using Water-to-Go, just check the water source with a local first to ensure you don’t use salt water in your bottle.

The Benefits of Travelling with Water-to-Go

It’s pretty clear then that there are many benefits of travelling with Water-to-Go. We were expecting to enjoy one or two obvious advantages but were also pleased to discover some super unexpected ones too. Our top benefits of travelling with this filtered water bottle include:

• Reduce the number of single-use plastic bottles you use when you travel or even eliminate the need for plastic bottles all together
• The lightweight Go! Bottle is easy to carry on any trip whilst the hand-held design fits neatly in your palm
• Enjoy free safe drinking water from pretty much anywhere including hotel rooms, public bathrooms and fresh water lakes and streams
• Travelling with Water-to-Go is actually cheaper than using single-use plastic bottles
• Conveniently carry less water with you on longer expeditions with the 50cl Water-to-Go bottle helping you to drink from water sources more frequently
• Avoid drinking warm water in hot climates whilst you carry less and fill up more often from fresh water sources
• The Water-to-Go filter is completely recyclable making this a zero waste water solution as long as you hold on to your bottle
• Water-to-Go’s bottles are BPA free so they are the safest option for you and your family

You may also like these 31 easy plastic free swaps to beat plastic pollution.

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Is Using Water-to-Go Expensive?

A Water-to-Go bottle costs around £15 (depending on the supplier) and lasts for at least 2 months on the original filter. After this, replacement filters can be purchased and used for a similar time period. If over 1 week, Karen saved 56 plastic bottles, over 8 weeks of constant travel in areas with unsafe drinking water, she could have refused 448 bottles. If a single-use plastic bottle of water costs even just 50p, that’s a saving of over £200 by buying just one Water-to-Go bottle with filter for £15.

In conclusion, we’ll never travel without our lightweight water bottle with filter again! Not only are we saving money by buying replacement Water-to-Go filters as and when we need to travel but we are also helping to directly reduce the demand for single-use plastic in countries that don’t always have the infrastructure to recycle, or safely dispose of, plastic bottles. We’ve been passionately refusing single-use plastic for years at home so it’s wonderful to now have a simple and effective solution for reducing single-use plastic when we travel too.

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