Don’t drink the water and carry a SteriPEN

One of the things that was echoed by everyone who had previously been to Kazakhstan is not to drink the water but instead to rely on bottled water exclusively. The trouble with even bottled water when you travel is that some shops just refill empty bottles with tap water and resell them. So far I haven’t seen any of that behavior here in Kazakhstan but I have certainly run into it elsewhere in Europe.

So to protect myself, and more importantly my daughter, I carry a SteriPEN with me when I travel. It weighs almost nothing and the UV light it puts out kills all the nasties in water. Of course it doesn’t filter out particles like other water filters but it is also a lot less bulky and it is really easy to zap a bottle of water before drinking it.

It is one of my favorite travel gadgets as getting a stomach bug while traveling is about the worst thing that can happen.