The SteriPen Sidewinder is a portable, hand-powered UV water purifier. It safely harnesses the strength of powerful ultraviolet light to kill just about anything and everything that may be lurking in your water. The Sidewinder runs on a completely renewable source of energy: your muscles. Taking its name from the small hand-crank on its side, which is the power source for the entire device, all you have to do is turn the crank for a bit and await the Sidewinder's green LED indicator to declare your water purified. After 90 seconds of cranking you'll have cleaned out over 99.99% of any bacteria...

Renown for their quality portable filters, Katadyn has made more than one appearance in our reviews already. With the Vario Microfilter Katadyn has engineered a portable solution capable of filtering down to 0.2 microns and backed up by several pre-filters and an activated carbon block filter. But ontop of this filtration prowess is some high-tech engineering which endows the Vario with its considerable flow-rate, appreciable filter lifetime, and easy-to-use handheld pump design. Equipped with two pistons, all you have to do to pass water through the Vario's considerable filters is squeeze the...

On the surface, the Survivor Filter is an unassuming hand-held straw-type personal water filter – portable, cleanable, and reusable – much like many other water filter straws. However, underneath that seemingly standard exterior is an undeniably impressive 3 stage filtration system, the strongest of which has a 0.05 micron hollow fiber filter – the highest filtration strength of any straw tested on the current market! For a reference point, the popular LifeStraw has a 0.2 micron filter, meaning its pores are 4 times larger and that the Survivor Filter will stop things that are 4 times smaller ...

Whenever I finish a hike, I usually only want two things: to relax and to drink some water. The last thing I want to do is more physical activities such as pumping dirty water through a filter. The Katadyn Gravity Camp lets gravity do some of the heavy lifting, using its Ultra flow filtration technology to quickly pump out clean water at 2 liters per minute – the fastest gravity driven filtration flow on the market! This more-or-less hands free speedster really piqued my interest, so I got a hold of one to put it to the test. This is what I've found out so far. A Simple, Portable, &...

The Sawyer Mini is a light weight, pocket-sized water filtration system with, frankly, a ridiculous lifetime. Weighing in at only 2 ounces the Sawyer Mini can produce up to 100,000 gallons of drinkable water. Yes, you read that right – 100,000 gallons. It dwarfs the lifespan of comparable products such as the LifeStraw, which has roughly the same weight but is only good for 264 gallons. And at around $20 on Amazon, it's only $5.00 more than the Lifestraw – that's 99,736 gallons more of clean water for only five more dollars. Talk about bang for your buck. Now, after hearing that I was alrea...

The classic LifeStraw is a huge and veteran name in the world of portable, personal water filtration. But where the original LifeStraw focused purely on the individual, with the LifeStraw Community manufacturer VesterGaard has taken aim at making a water filter on the opposite end of the spectrum, while still preserving the portability that made LifeStraw such a success. The LifeStraw Community looks more like a portable water cooler or dispenser than it does a water filter - and does a great job of doubling as a super-convenient dispenser. With a total capacity of up to 13 gallons and four ta...

Occasionally here at Hydration Anywhere we get requests to review products from our readers. No single product has been requested more than the Katadyn Pocket Water Filter - we regularly receieve questions from readers about the product and inquiries wondering when we'll be doing a review. Well, we don't want to keep you waiting any more, so we got the chance to try out a Katadyn Pocket Water Filter for ourselves and this is what we found. As in most of our reviews, we took the opportunity to spend a few weeks with the Katadyn and actually went out into the field and put the device through ...

The SteriPEN is a remarkably simple and clever little device. All it really consists of is a small, handheld UV light. Dip the light into a glass of water, turn it on for 90 seconds, and you've just killed upwards of 99.9% of bacteria and viruses in your water. There is an immediate appeal to such a simple, reusable device like the SteriPEN. Ideal for anyone traveling to locations with questionable water supplies, or for anyone who wants the ability to sterilize their water for drinking without impacting the taste or altering the water in any way other than killing microorganisms. Tr...

Portable filtration is a brilliant thing. Enabling users to filter water from almost any source, out in the field, on location, quickly and conveniently, they present one of the most useful pieces of equipment imaginable for survivalists, outdoors enthusiasts, those living in rural locations, or anyone who wants the peace of mind of knowing they can always purify their own water. We have previously taken a look at some smaller portable water filters such as the LifeStraw Go Bottle, (read our review of LifeStraw Go here) which do tend to be more what people might typically imagine when they ...

Beginning in 1945, government initiatives began adding fluoride to drinking water across the United States. This decision was made in response to studies which demonstrated a lower incidence of dental cavities in areas with high fluoride content in the local water supply. Now as many as 75% of Americans drink water with added fluoride. (Source: cancer.org) The practice is not limited to the United States, with countries across the globe adopting the practice. According to the U.S. Center of Disease Control, water fluoridation is one of the greatest medical achievements of the 20th century. Yet...