Drinkable water is going to be on the top of the survival priority list in any situation. Whether you are stranded on the road for three days, evading a natural disaster for three weeks, or dealing with TEOTWAWKI for the next three decades, without having enough clean drinking water to stay alive, all of your other preps will not matter. There are a number of ways to treat water to make it drinkable. Having a personal water filter is one of those ways, and has a number of tactical advantages. They are light weight, and inexpensive so each person in your group can have and carry at least two. I see these as reserve items. You should have as much stored water as possible at your main location, as well as larger family sized filters. But these are useful especially if you are on the go and bugging out on foot. Water weighs a lot, and you won’t be able to carry a lot with you. Boiling takes time, requires you stay in one place long enough to do it, and requires fuel. The advantage to portable personal water filters is that you can drink on the go, as you find water.

Survival Hax is a company that imports a line of inexpensive but well made survival items. I have written about their survival shovel,  as well as their EDC keychain

According to the manufacturer, this water filter has the following characteristics:

• Filter up to 400 gallons (1,500 liters) of drinkable water with one straw. (30% more efficient than standard portable filters.)
• Advanced filter purifies at .1 microns and removes 99.9% of waterborne protozoan parasites.
• Chemical Free technology for healthy water intake.
• Lightweight and easy to store (3oz, 7.5in long, 1in diameter). Perfect for Bug Out Bags.

There are a number of portable water filters on the market, and honestly, all about equally as good.  The particular filter has a number of add ons, including a small compass, small mirror,  and the end cap is a whistle.  Cute, but to me, probably not that all useful. A well-built carabiner allows it to be attached easily on the outside of your gear if you want. But it DOES have a couple features that I consider very useful. If you look at the picture above of the woman drinking, notice how close down to the water she has to get. This filter comes with a length of surgical tubing which will fit on the end to allow you more stand-off from the water.  This allows you to keep your head up higher and to be able to look around while drinking, enhancing your security. The tubing could also be used as an emergency tourniquet.

But the one feature that really stands out for me on this particular filter, is that the end cap is threaded so that you can screw on a standard 28mm plastic water bottle. This has a number of advantages. Water locations can be dangerous places in a serious situation, attracting all kinds of two and four-legged critters. With a couple spare empty bottles, you can fill them up quickly and move on to drink the water away from the water source. I see this as a definite advantage.  You can get one from Survival Hax or from Amazon Prime