Dear Rolf,

I am getting ready to travel for a year or so. I drink a lot of water and am a little concerned about the cost of daily bottled water. Are any water filters effective on tap water in foreign countries, or is it still unsafe?

— Johanna, Hawaii

Dear Johanna,

Several companies make portable filters that effectively cleanse tap water overseas (Pur, Katadyn and MSR are the market leaders), but my instinct is to tell you to leave these water filters at home. I say this not because portable water filters are bad, but because in nine years of continuous overseas travel, I have yet to meet a traveler who used a portable filter for more than a month before giving up on it.

At home, it’s easy to think you can save some money by cleaning your own water, but on the road even the most stalwart spendthrifts get sick of filtering their own water supply several times a day.  On top of this, tap water in industrialized areas (such as Europe and North America) is generally quite drinkable, and the bottled water in developing areas (such as Asia and Latin America) is generally healthy and costs next to nothing. Unless you’re going to spend lots of time in very remote areas, I’d say buying bottled water as you travel is the best way to go.

Just remember to recycle those bottles whenever and wherever possible!

Columnist Rolf Potts is the author of Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.

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For more Rolf Potts, read a 2003 World Hum interview with him, or his dispatch from Thailand, Signs of Confusion.