Lose the Nalgene bottle
Wide mouth Nalgene bottles are pretty much the standard for many outdoor travelers. I get it, I have several.
Why are they popular?
Good places to put on some favorite stickers
Fairly indestructible
Good for car camping, trips close to the car where weight is not an issue
Pouring in hot water to warm up your sleeping bag on a cold night
They can go with you on every trip, and over time, can even become your inseparable little adventure buddy.
But, they have a few downsides, mainly cost and weight. An empty Nalgene bottle is 185 grams, and a new one will set you back about $10.
(Yes, Nalgene does make a so-called ultralight version, which reportedly weighs 106 grams for a 32 ounce bottle. That’s a big improvement, but those lightweight ones are hard to find; just about everyone seems to have the standard weight model.)
A better alternative? There are lots of options, but my favorite is the 20 ounce Gatorade bottle.
Essentially free; it's re-purposed from yourself or someone else.
Way more sturdy than most plastic bottles
Can hold hot water, which is helpful for drying out socks/gloves, and making a hot water bottle to put in your sleeping bag
Lightweight (only 36 grams)
Recycle it without a second thought if the microbes in your bottle get especially scary
Bottles like this are used by pretty much every every weight conscious long distance hiker
But wait, you say, I love my CamelBak! I must drink from a hose, so I can finish my hike FASTER!
Yes eagle-eye, I’m comparing a 20 ounce Gatorade bottle to a 32 ounce Nalgene. That's because the 20 ounce is my preferred smallish size. But the comparison math is easy. the Gatorade bottle is effectively 2/3 lighter.
Nalgene: 180 grams weight / 32 ounce capacity = 5.6 grams of bottle to carry 1 ounce water.
Gatorade: 35 grams weight / 20 ounce capacity = 1.8 grams of bottle to carry 1 ounce water.
I like to keep it in a lightweight mesh pocket on my shoulder strap; I got it from this store on Etsy. Search Etsy for “backpack and water bottle holder”. They come in several different sizes.
image: https://www.etsy.com/listing/944154329/
Need a big container for a really hot day or basecamp water storage? Check out the modern generation of water reservoirs. Here’s my favorite, the Hydrapak.
The equivalent three 1 quart Nalgene bottles are more than five times heavier than one Hydrapak! Cost is about the same as well. Downside, nowhere to put cool stickers. =^(
Note that this reservoir is only for water storage. It does not have a tube or a mouthpiece. There's probably some cool way to connect this to a lightweight water filter to make a gravity feed into another bottle. But that’s not my thing so I’ll let you figure out how to do that. :-)
Here's the Hydrapak in use.
It has a sturdy screwtop that’s connected to the bottle so you can't lose it
Two different handles, one on the top and one on the side
Convenient places to clip a carabiner so you can open the top and let it dry upside down
