Water Quality Worries and Woes on the Road

Buying water in Quartzsite.

The ability to travel from place to place gives you many opportunities to sample local flavor – including the water that flows from your faucet. After you start visiting more regions you’ll be amazed at the variation in water quality between towns and states. Although I don’t fancy myself to be a water connoisseur, I can certainly tell the difference.

For example, the water quality in Northern Colorado is pure, crisp and fresh, just like the Rockies. But water from the San Francisco Bay Area tastes as stagnant and old as the 1934 Hetch Hetchy water system that it came from. Now that we’ve visited certain areas many times over, we know what to expect when we’re filling up our freshwater tanks if we’re dry camping. In some places like around Yuma, the water tastes as stale and dead as the Salton Sea. Whenever we arrive in the area, we stock up on water flavorings just to make their H20 palatable.

Many RVers will carry bottled drinking water, but we don’t. First, I don’t like adding so much extra plastic to landfills, and second, I refuse to fall for marketing ploys by bottled water companies. As this study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) revealed:

“EWG’s study has revealed that bottled water can contain complex mixtures of industrial chemicals never tested for safety, and may be no cleaner than tap water.”

So what’s a roaming gypsy to do? Many full-timers choose to carry massive water filtration systems to ensure that no matter where they roam, their water will always taste good. They use relatively inexpensive ones like:

More Water Qaulity: Camco 40631 EVO Premium Water Filter

5 micron barrier and granulated active carbon reduces bad taste, odors, sediments, bacteria, chlorine and much more

While some go all out for peace of mind and purchase premium RV water filtration systems like whole house ultra violet filtration systems.

Everyone’s situation is different. Since storage space has always been at a premium for us, highly designed water filtration systems haven’t been a priority. I suppose if one of us had a serious health condition we would be a little more concerned about water quality on the road and invest in a better system.

Thankfully we’re healthy so in nine years of traveling, here’s all we’ve used to filter our water:

• Camco 40043 TastePURE Water Filter
• Brita Everyday Water Filter Pitcher
• Brita Replacement Filters

That’s it and we feel pretty good about our RV water filtration system. And while some RVers won’t drink water from their RV’s fresh water holding tanks even with filtration in place, we do. Have we ever gotten sick from our holding tank water? Nope. Only one time did we question the quality of the water we put in there but after flushing our tanks thoroughly at a RV park, it never bothered us again..

The only problem with being so lax about our water filtration on the road is that our RV plumbing fixtures take a beating. In less than two years our beautiful faux-bronze finished kitchen and bath hardware looks weather beaten and worn. Each time I look at them I wonder: if our faucets are getting so cruddy, then what’s that water doing to our bodies?

Do I spend time worrying about it? Nope. Are we ever going to buy a whole house RV water filtration system? Don’t bet on it. Out here on the road there are plenty of other uncertain situations we can obsess about – or choose to worry about none at all.

I’ll take the latter. How about you?

Rene Agredano

Rene Agredano and her husband, Jim Nelson, became full-time RVers in 2007 and have been touring the country ever since. In her blog, Rene chronicles the ins and outs of the full-timing life and brings readers along to meet the fascinating people and amazing places they visit on the road. Her road trip adventures are chronicled in her blog at LiveWorkDream.com.