I’m always losing water bottles. I’m grateful that they’re swag at so many events, because I’m continually leaving them behind somewhere — on airplanes, in hotel rooms, in the back seat of the rental car. Carrying a water bottle is The Right Thing to Do, not just because throwing away plastic bottle after plastic water bottle is bad. It’s the right thing to do because you’re on the move, man, you need to stay hydrated, and if you have a water bottle, you’ll do a better job of that. So, yeah, a water bottle, you should have one.
I’m partial to stainless screw top water bottles, they fit in the site pockets on my day pack and if I’ve remembered to grab a carabiner, they clip in to place. I know lots of folks who like the non-BPA wide mouth plastic bottles too, they’re easy to deal with and you can keep more than water in them — I’ve used them to stow the cables for all my electronic stuff, for example.
Both of those options are lightweight, good for when you have to haul your stuff around, which I do, often. I mention this right away because the bottle I got from the Bamboo Water Bottle Company is heavy. It looks cool. It’s well designed. It’s made out of snappy materials. It’s heavy. And that’s before there’s water in it.
The bottle pretty, it’s really pretty. It’s got a blond bamboo sleeve that protects the glass bottle inside from breaking. The sleeve also provides some insulation. The lid has a built in straw so it’s easy to drink from while you’re driving or riding your bike. There’s a version with a flip top — it snaps shut so your drink won’t spill when you knock it over. The bottle comes apart so you can wash it; you can put everything but the bamboo sleeve in the dishwasher.
Here’s the truth: I’m probably not going to use it much for travel. When the weather improves around here, it will be great for drinking ice tea out of while I swing in the hammock in the backyard. If I’m packing a picnic, I can see filling it with gin and tonic for one, or some other summer cocktail. It’s a nice bottle for leaving on your desk at work, a good water bottle really does go a long way towards helping you ease up on the office coffee.
But given my tendencies to leave a trail of water bottles across the planet? There’s no easy way for me to clip it to my bag. And the weight alone is enough to make me reconsider packing it. I like this thing, it’s an attractive piece of gear. I’m just not convinced it’s something I need for travel.