What’s In My Backpack? The Best Water Bottle To Travel With
Over the course of years of travel and hundreds of trips, I’ve used countless items to make travel easier. Some of those items were complete flops, but over the years I’ve assembled a pretty good group of go-to gadgets in my backpack. Here’s another look at some of my favorite gadgets and travel-related items.
Previous items I’ve written about:
- My favorite portable charger
- The best power strips/hubs for the road
- My favorite toiletry kit
- The best sleep mask
For many years, I neglected eating well and exercise because I was generally fit and thought I was young and invincible. I never was invincible and nobody would confuse me with “young” any longer. My wife has helped me start to be healthier when I travel, which includes drinking plenty of fluids. I don’t have any problem drinking water, but I’m particular about the taste and temperature (I like cold water). My wife solved that with the Think Sport water bottle a couple years ago for me.
The benefits of this bottle make it a great fit for travel:
- The bottle doesn’t sweat. At all. Period. That makes it much less messy than similar bottles.
- It will keep ice in my bottle with minimal melting for over 24 hours and keep things cold much longer than that. It also works well with hot beverages.
- The cap is held on by a plastic loop which also serves as a pretty good handle.
- There’s a screen on the inside that holds in ice, etc.
As cool as this water bottle is, you still need to dump it out before you go through airport security. I’ve never been stopped for secondary screening when traveling with it.
The bottles are very durable. Because it’s stainless steel I’ve dropped it dozens of times and only managed to slightly chip the paint. I did break the strap that holds the lid on at one point but was able to buy a replacement from the website for only a couple of dollars (and I abuse the strap, carrying it by the strap nonstop every day while it’s full).
The bottle is for sale here on Amazon in a few different colors and sizes. I carry the 750ml, which still fits in the expandable pouch on the side of my backpack easily. They’re as cheap as $17.99 for the 750ml with the smaller sizes a few dollars less on Amazon with free shipping.
Amazon has the cheapest price if you’re shopping for value. If you’re going to buy one of the colors that’s roughly $20 and you’re charity minded, you can go to the ThinkSport website and have them donate 10% of the purchase price to charity.
That’s pretty cool in my book. I actually discovered ThinkSport from LIVESTRONG, when I was given one of the bottles by their fundraising team. I’ve enjoyed a long relationship with LIVESTRONG that’s been mutually beneficial, needing their assistance to deal with family losses to cancer and subsequently helping them raise money to help others. That’s why I think the bottle looks so good in yellow.
Even if you don’t pick LIVESTRONG as your charity (and I hope you do), there are other great charities listed that you can donate to. And, in the spirit of charity, I’ll donate the referral fee I earn from Amazon if you buy a bottle from them (and match it dollar for dollar with my own donation). So, no matter where you buy the bottle, something good comes out of it. And, you get a hell of a water bottle.
