Water is such an important commodity when living off grid in a van, motorhome or any form of overlander. When moving from place to place you won’t always be able to trust the quality of water sources, especially between different countries. This post outlines a couple of products that we use daily for safe, cold, purified water whilst living vanlife.
Below are two of our favourite products for safe drinking water when living in a van. We purchased both of these products at retail price and the feedback is based on our own opinions and usage, with no endorsements/sponsorship.
We purchased the Lifesaver Jerrycan in January 2023 and have been drinking from this exclusively since across Greece, Türkiye and now in Northern Europe. Not only is this an extremely durable and flexible way to have safe drinking water from almost any source but it’s also increased our water-carrying payload which means more time off grid!
The Lifesaver Jerrycan is an 18.5l water purifier. It removes 99.99% of viruses, 99.9999% Bacteria and 99.9% Cysts. The removable filter is good for purifying 20,000l (That’s a LOT of water).
We really love the simplicity of this system. The Jerrycan has two openings, one which houses the filter and tap on the outside and another which is for filling water and housing the manual pump to pressurise the system. Once the system is pressurised you can either push the tap, or push and twist to lock it in the open position. We like that these parts are all modular and easily replaceable. The tap also features an activated carbon disc for keeping the taste consistent and also reduces heavy metals and chemicals.
When we first moved into the van we both owned CamelBak Eddy drinking bottles, we both really liked these but very quickly found the disadvantage of using a single walled bottle in hot weather. We’re now using the Surflogic 950ml wide mouth bottle. They are BPA free, double wall vacuum insulation, durable construction and feature 5 layer Tempmax technology which keeps your drink hot or cold for longer (12h hot & 24h cold)
Our current system for hot weather is that we fill 2 x 1.5l bottles from the Jerrycan and place this water in the fridge. We then fill our Surflogic bottles with cold, purified water and it stays cool all day, even if the bottles are exposed to the Sun. This has been a great system for us as some water sources are not cold, and the underslung water tanks are often dispersing warm water when it’s 30+ degrees out.
Due to the interest in the Icon LifeSaver Jerrycan we have setup an affiliate link where you can purchase these products directly. If you’ve found the information in this post useful and would like to make a purchase we’d really appreciate you purchasing via this link it won’t cost you any extra but helps support our content.
