How to Clean Water While Camping

I just got back from a three-month trip down Mexico’s Baja peninsula. The region isn’t exactly known for known for its drinking water, but I didn’t have any issues while camping, and didn’t have to put much effort at all into sourcing clean water. And that’s thanks to a combination of three products designed by my friend—and prolific outdoor product engineer—Owen Mesdag.

Mesdag used to work for Mountain Safety Research. While there, he realized that the most common need for water filtration in this country isn’t camping, but rather people who have received boil-water advisories at home. There are hundreds of those in the U.S. per-year, impacting millions of households. So, he modified the company’s simplest filter for home use by attaching an adaptor compatible with a standard garden hose faucet on one end. The MSR Home Emergency Water Filter costs $40.

Why a hose faucet? It’s the only universal standard that’s used across North America. No matter if you live in a detached house or high rise apartment complex, you’ll likely find such a faucet both inside your building’s utility room, and obviously outside, too. Outdoors, you’ll find hoses at gas stations, hotels, well sites, livestock water tanks, you name it. Just screw the filter to the faucet, turn that on, and enjoy drinking water free of bacteria, protozoa, and parasites.

A few years ago, Mesdag left MSR for Swedish RV accessory brand Dometic, which has used his talent to expand into the general car camping space here in North America, with a range of practical, high-quality, affordable solutions for comfort and convenience. One of those solutions is an alternative to the traditional jerry can for water transportation and storage.

“Dude, I just reinvented water,” Mesdag told me a couple years back, when he called to tell me about the 11-liter Dometic Go Hydration Water Jug ($70). I’ve covered that product more in-depth, which you can read about here, so for the purposes of this article let’s specifically talk about its compatibility with that MSR filter, and the unique solution that creates. And relevant here is that claiming to reinvent water is a big deal, because us humans and our dogs are utterly reliant on the stuff for survival. But water is heavy, incompressible, and provides the perfect breeding ground for all manner of tiny organisms that are trying to kill us.

Mesdag designed the jug using the standard CPC fittings you’ll be familiar with from the tube connections on most water filters. That’s how the electric Dometic Go Hydration Water Faucet ($100) attaches to the jug, and how the hose underneath the jug’s lid that allows that faucet to draw water from the bottom of the jug plugs in.

Since the filter element used in the Home Emergency Water Filter was originally intended to fit in-line between a hydration bladder and drinking hose in military applications (MSR makes all field water purification gear for the U.S. military, which is why the company’s Seattle HQ contains the most sophisticated water lab on Earth), it uses those CPC fittings too.

And that means you can simply screw the Home Emergency Water Filter onto any hose faucet on the continent (and likely many elsewhere), plug it into the lid on the water jug, and fill up with clean water anywhere. And do that without opening the jug.

Note that you will need to add an additional CPC hose insert to the filter’s outlet. You can probably scrounge one from inside your gear closet. If you do need to buy one, they’re typically sold in bulk, because single items tend to be overpriced. This one on Amazon, for example, is an absurd $12.

Keeping contaminants out of your water system is critical for trips like the one I just went on. Spending months in silty, sandy, filthy desert environments is going to leave all your stuff coated in grime. You probably don’t want any of it in your drinking water, and the connections between faucet and filter, filter and jug, and jug and tap keep it all out.

Mesdag describes the solution as, “a water vault.”

There’s a couple of obvious questions that arise here. First, what about viruses? Honestly, in North America, they’re not really something you need to worry about. Just like here in El Norte, Mexico, where officials treat the water with chlorine, which kills viruses, bacteria, and parasites. A big reason why most people in Mexico drink bottled water is because that dose of chlorine is so heavy it actually makes the water that comes out of taps taste like a swimming pool. It’s the pipes that ship that water, the trucks that haul it, and the cisterns that homes and businesses use to store it that can then introduce pathogens, and those aren’t commonly going to be viruses. Same story at untreated water sources like wells.

If you are worried about virus contamination (or plan to use the jugs to store water for periods longer than a camping trip), Mesdag suggests adding a few drops of chlorine bleach. The Centers for Disease Control recommends adding eight drops of unscented bleach per-gallon of water to disinfect it, so with these 2.9 gallon tanks, that’s 23 drops per-fill. Carrying an eyedropper bottle of bleach is easy, just note that bleach has a shelf life of one year, beyond which point it will begin to lose its potency.

Yes, it’s safe to drink water treated with bleach. I explored that topic in-depth a few years ago, after then-President Donald Trump claimed drinking bleach might work on COVID-19.

The second obvious question is why not just buy aqua purificada? Bottled water is available at virtually every gas station, convenience store, and food emporium in the world, but it comes in plastic containers, and throwing those away after pouring water into your jugs just seems wasteful.

And, what about human-powered camping trips, or just adventures away from your boat or truck? Easy, just fill up your hydration bladder or Nalgene from the purified water in your jug, grab the filter body to connect in-line with your bladder and drinking hose, or pocket that bottle of bleach before hitting the trail.

Do you really need the $100 Dometic tap? Three of the jugs just so happen to fit the awkward space in the back of my truck defined by the tie down points on my Decked drawers, and the mounting clamps my GoFastCamper uses to brace my truck bed. That 8.7 gallons of water proved just enough to get me, my wife, and my three thirsty dogs through a two-night weekend, while cooking and doing dishes, without any thought of rationing. Skipping dishes would have easily increased that to three nights or more. A big part of that frugality came from the tap, which delivers water at precisely one-liter per-minute, and automatically shuts off after one minute. The capacitive switch on its top also makes turning it off with an elbow or the back of your hand easy, if you’re brushing your teeth or holding a dirty dish. So, while not strictly necessary (you can simply pour from a jug or use the included mechanical tap), it ends up helping you carry less water.

That water will be totally clean, safe to drink, and you’ll be able to carry as little of it as possible, thanks to Mesdag’s clever designs.