Tactic Vans

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Van Life and Water

Gaetan Della Pietra

Let’s face it, you didn’t bought a Van to drink water from a plastic bottle in nature, or did you?

At the time I bought the filter for my road trip from Switzerland to Turkey, passing by country not known for their drinkable tap water as Switzerland is, there weren’t may options available that were easy to use.

So I bought a Berkey “Travel” water filter, it was the most recommended online from YouTubers I trust like “Gregsway”, in fact I received the filter, perfect size fo two people drinking a lot during summer, 5.6 liters, was plenty of water for us, and every night I add water in it, to have freshly filtered water the day after.

In some countries you don’t get a lot of water at the gas station, so you need to improvise with the gear at your disposal.

The problem was that the Berkey filter in my Hymer Grand Canyon S fell at least 3 times, every time emptying 3 to 5 liters of water on the floor of my new van, it was a pleasure.

I didn’t wanted to drill holes in the interior to fix the water filter properly, so I came out with a wonderful solution that doesn’t imply drilling holes, and this solution also endured some heavy off-roading without a single drip. The only problem is that you need to move it in order to fill your water bottles.

Summing up, what you will need:

  1. A water filter at least as effective as the “Berkey Travel Filter”, I’m not sponsored by them, I have no affiliate link, but I was impressed with the fact that I was never sick, and I drank “filtered water” from gas station in Albania, Kosovo, Turkey and so on. If you find an other brand, model or whatever, I’m happy for you, just make sure it filters everything.

  2. Magnets and strong elastics to fix the filter in place, so that you won’t spill your water on the floor of your new van

  3. At least 3 to 4 water bottles to fill with filtered water to put in your fridge, in order to always have fresh filtered water. Please use re-usable bottles, the classic Sign ones, or even glass bottles from orange juices.

  4. Do not forget to fill the tank of your van, and also to fill up your filter each time you take filtered water from it, because you need to know that it takes time to filter water with a Berkey filter.

I hope this can be useful, and if you have a better solution, please write it in the comments, I would love to know about it :-)