Water Supply

[SQuirrel]

You can get a Katydyn Hiker for about 65 bucks and that will give you all the water you need. Pert near 200 gallons per filter element which are only like 30 bucks. I'm a backpacker and motorcycle camper primarily so I allways cary my filter. When car camping I will bring a couple of gallons just too be lazy, but when those run out I will filter into those jugs if available. When backpacking, Even at dry camps I try not to carry more than a gallon of water just to get me through the night and back to a source I can filter from the next day. Needless to say, I don't do well in the desert.

[Barney]

I carry on as much as I can, of course, because without the water a person can endure much less than without the food. But everytime I prepare myself for some trip I ask around where can I find water locally. Drinking rain water is OK if you are in an emergency, but drinking stream water is just irresponsible, because you can get really sick from bacterias from it. Boiling is the best cleaning process for the water. I also carry water purification tablets with me, because they are quick and convenient way of purifying water from bacterias (but not as good as boiling).

[Gondor]

That's a lot of good tips and tricks for preserving and purifying water. Anyway I got interested and saw this article on Wiki, explains in detail what method should you consider for water purification and all pros and cons.

Portable water purification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia