Water Purification: Iodine Tablets

If you are going to be doing long distance hiking one of your biggest issues will be finding safe drinking water.  In order to avoid a potentially deadly infection while in the wilderness you will need to have a method of purifying water.  One of the best methods of purifying water is to use iodine tablets to remove any harmful bacteria that might exist in the water.  After you have filled your container with water, added your tablets, and waited the proper amount of time for it to purify, you need to remember to loosen the lid of your container and let some of the purified water pour out so that you can wash off the rim and cap.  This is done because there might be a droplet of infected water from when you first filled your canteen.  Also it is important to realize that this method of water purification will not remove any chemicals or sediment from your water.  This is less a factor if you are dealing with clear streams, than if you are dealing with cloudy water or a water source near a mining operation (which may have polluted the water with chemicals like mercury during the extraction process).  Some people find the taste of iodine unpleasant the way I would recommend dealing with that issue is by bringing some powdered drink flavors like Kool-Aid®.  The only other real issue is that some people with shellfish or iodine allergies can have allergic reactions to the tablets, so if you have those conditions consult your doctor or consider a water filter.  The benefits of this method is that it weighs less and takes up less room than some water filters, also you never have to worry about if your filter has reached the end of its life and stopped working because the number of tablets give you an accurate picture of how much more filtered water you have to work with.