Best Backpacking Water Filters and Purifiers of 2025

Clean drinking water is essential when you head into the backcountry, and an effective, reliable water filter or purifier ensures that you have it.

We’ve tested dozens of backpacking water filters and water purifiers over thousands of miles to find the best water filters for most outdoor adventures and international trips. And we really put them to the test on thru hikes such as the Oregon Desert Trail and Arizona Trail, where the water quality is questionable at best, for long-term data.

Continue reading to learn more about the best backpacking water filters and purifiers, written by Amanda Jameson.

Foto miniatura Blog Autor
Senior Editor
Amanda Jameson

Amanda Jameson is a Colorado-based outdoor writer and advocate. She maintains the blog, Brown Girl on the NST, which documents her experiences as a black woman in the outdoors. In 2017-2018, Amanda traveled the country speaking/presenting at festivals and outdoor events as a Subaru Leave No Trace Traveling Master Trainer.

Her work has been published in Griots Republic and Backpacker Magazine, where she was the 2016 Pacific Crest Trail traveling correspondent. She currently is the Vice President of the American Long Distance Hiking Association-West and works for a non-profit that seeks to diversify the outdoor industry.

As an outdoor athlete, she has been profiled in Modern Hiker, and on The Trail Show and Sounds of the Trail podcasts. She is featured in episode 160 of She Explores, and spoke with the Trust for Public Land about the importance of long-distance hiking. She was also a speaker on the panel “Where would we be without trails?” at the Outdoor Retailer Summer 2018 Trade Show.

She holds a MA from Oxford University and lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Menciones en los medios de comunicación

Sawyer’s picaridin lotion lasts a long time, stores well in survival kits and cars, and doesn’t have the laundry-list poison control label like DEET sprays.

Sean Gold
Founder & Lead Writer

Menciones en los medios de comunicación

Secure a small loop of cord to a trekking pole to create a convenient place to hang a water bladder and filter water.

Nathan Pipenberg
Escritor

Menciones en los medios de comunicación

It contains 20 percent picaridin, a powerful insect repellent that will make nights around the campfire much more enjoyable.

Liz Provencher
Freelane Writer