I have seen so many forum posts and reviews on portable water filters in the back-country – where people have traveled way out back into deserted areas and had their “Expensive” water filter or purifier fail on them – leaving them stuck and vulnerable to disease and sickness from dirty water.
I say, that is bad planning!
First, let me say that I am a bit of a Prepper, not hard core, but I am ready for most disasters and emergencies. The number one rule in being prepared, is that the more you must rely on something, the more need there is to make sure you have spare parts for those items – if not extras units altogether!
I would never go into a country, or an area that is 100’s or 1000’s of miles away from any form of civilization without extra parts or an extra water filter and anything needed to purify water.
We would all like to believe that if we spend enough money, we can expect 100% reliability and performance – but let’s face it, even the finest cars like Mercedes, BMW and so on, do break down. You can never predict what it might be and you need to be prepared for any possibility. The same applies to water filters and products used for purification – or survival products in general.
The Katadyn Pocket Water Filter is considered one of the best portable water filters available, and a good example, if I was just traveling through the USA, Canada or Western Europe, I would not worry much and only bring the one unit, along with a SteriPEN Defender – BUT – you can be sure, if I was heading out into the back-country of Africa, Australia, the Middle East or Asia, I would have two of each of these items – It just is not worth taking a chance that one of them breaks – or even gets lost.
Who knows, you may drop it off a cliff, or lose it running away from wild animals (or poachers in some places). The bottom line, when traveling to areas where you cannot get back to a major center easily, you need to have two of everything, or at the very minimum, a full array of replacement parts. Considering the size of these items and the small amount of space they take up, it would not be a big deal to double up on them.
Personally, for the cost involved, I would double up and play it safe so I never have to say – I was left stuck out in the bush with no source of clean drinking water