Long ago ditched most of my travel gadgets. Or they broke & a replacement's impossible to find. But one gadget still love... the Steripen water purifier.

Bottled water's everywhere & usually cheap. Surprisingly, more & more locals around the world now drink bottled water. Considering the rate of illness & even death from bad water, that's great! But in the middle of the night when you wake up, drink all your water & still want more... it's good having your own purifier. And more importantly, hate the thought of littering the world with plastic bottles! Saw an entire barge overflowing with plastic bottles coming off one Thai island.

The Steripen is a simple solution. Simple, as in press one button, wait a minute & you've got a day's worth of clean water. And it's only 4" & weighs about 4oz. The bad thing is it's about $100... but travel a year & it'll pay for itself.

But it only kills bugs... doesn't clean the water. So couldn't use it in Cambodia where the water was dark brown or towns where tap water was from the ocean (salty). And will stop using it here... apparently many of the wells in South Asia are contaminated with arsenic. Just read that over 25 million people in Bangladesh have arsenic poisoning. So obviously it's not the perfect purifier, but think the Steripen is still pretty great.

Available from Amazon.com: SteriPEN Traveler Handheld Water Purifier