 30 years ago I drank from mountain streams in Snowdonia and the Lakes, more folk in the hills means more sh*t, and polluted water, so only drink from streams in the Highlands now. I have used a Travel Tap throughout 2009 and found it excellent. Flow rate is reasonable, and increases with a harder squeeze; drink straight from the bottle or decant into another. I only carry a half litre of water at the start of the day, and replenish with the Travel Tap as and when I need to. This saves on weight for the uphill slog at the start of the day. Would'nt be without it.
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 I've bought one of the DrinkSafe Explorer canteens for my trip to Nepal/India later this week.
My only disappointment so far was that the flow rate is quite slow if you want to use it to fill other containers.
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 That thing looks like the daddy to me. A good choice Benjamin!
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To be honest, even if it fails compared to the alternatives on all other points (which according to the marketing blurb it shouldn't do), it wins bigtime on price.
This is £35 for 1600 litres of instant safe water. Compare that to £6 for the Chlorine Dioxide drops I have also bought - they treat just 60 litres and take 20 minutes to work. Plus its not just a case of throwing them in a bottle with your water and waiting a bit like you can with Iodine; you need to mix the two chemicals in a bottlecap for 10 minutes, then transfer them into your water bottle and leave for a further 10 minutes. Sounds like a massive timewasting faff to me, plus how can I carry enough chemicals to last a 3 month trip!?
Other water filters I looked at were significantly bulkier, more expensive and often had a shorter lifespan.
The DrinkSafe systems sound too good to be true to me. If I return in February without getting seriously ill, I think we will have found a truly and amazingly innovative product here.
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Is the bottle really 6.5 litres capacity? It would be difficult to carry.
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 No john the bottle isn't really 6.5L it's 650ml or .65L bit of a slip up there which is also why russ said he only carries half a litre of water around now. The explorer bottle really is 1L but the extra capacity isn't of too much importance if there's a water source nearbybecuase it's not filtered until it comes out fo the bottle just saves a bit of filling up and adds a bit of weight. The real appeal of that is probably the style (maybe more robust?)
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 I've used mine on a few occasions now in the Brecon Beacons and it helps save weight that you do not need to carry lots of water. Found it no problem using, a bit slow but the benefit outways this as its easy to use. Wouldn't be without it now.
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HI, bought a steripen and pre filter, wouldn't go back to anything else now, brilliant kit
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In winter I still drink straight from the stream when there are no sheep on the fells eg just below the snowline. I love my travel tap because any water I think might be dodgy doesn't taste like swimming pool after I've treated it.
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 Good product, that does the job, but it requires a lot of really hard sqeezing to get an adequate flow rate.
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 No such problems with the in-line filter 
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 It is slow, I find it too slow to drink from, but I gather water & decant it into a water bladder at the end of a walk for cooking & coffee whilst wild camping. It is a pleasurable job as any wild camper will tell you, I look forward to the task.
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 No such problems with the in-line filter Quite. If you already use a bladder, the in-line filter is the way to go. Not only does the filter clean the water as you drink from the bladder but you can use the bladder to fill your water bag or bottle with clean, safe water for the evening / morning when wildcamping.
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 I'd agree it's slow and you need to decant rather than drink straight but it still seems the best there is. I always think that even tap water from the bottle but not driven through the filter still tastes a bit rubbery. Maybe I haven't used it enough yet..
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I'm tempted to buy the in-line filter and then use it with Source's converter tube that allows you to link it up with any plastic bottle so that you don't have to bother with messing around with getting a bladder in and out of your pack which can be difficult when it's full. Anybody tried this? I also wondered how feasible it might be simply to stuff my Source bladder in the side pocket of my backpack rather than having it in the more conventional place? Obvious risks that it will get damaged and burst I suppose.
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 "I'm tempted to buy the in-line filter and then use it with Source's converter tube that allows you to link it up with any plastic bottle so that you don't have to bother with messing around with getting a bladder in and out of your pack which can be difficult when it's full. Anybody tried this?" see picture above. you can put your water container in whatever orientation wherever you like in/on your pack/person. r_mac has some excellent videos on his blog about it all maceachain.blogspot.com/2009/05/weight-watching.html (grotty link. work doesn't allow blog viewing so i can't be more specific)
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Gonna get a travel tap myself for this summer, if we have one. A great solution for not having to carry loads of water with you.
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 I think i will buy the travel tap for the TGO challenge, i thought about the steripen, but this seems a more reasonable price.
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