Update On Our Travel Berkey Experience!
After about a year and a half of traveling full time with our Travel Berkey, we cannot imagine life without it. It is easy to use, and provides us with clean, odor-free, consistent water no matter where we are. Here are a couple of things we've learned during our time with it...
Carrying it on the countertop worked for a while. But one day, we hit a sizeable and unavoidable bump in the road which knocked our Berkey over, flooded the kitchen area with water, and broke our black filters. Luckily, it did absolutely no damage to the Berkey itself. The stainless steel of the Berkey and the stainless steel spigot are tough! But since then we have a new method for traveling with it.
- We do not refill our Berkey as we use water from it on the night before or morning of travel. This makes it a lot lighter and stable for moving.
- We set the Berkey in our kitchen sink and place towels around it to protect it and keep it upright.
- We place a paper towel under the top to keep it from rattling as we move.
- We do not take it apart or remove the filters when we travel.
- When we arrive at our next campsite, we put out our slides and then place the Berkey back on the kitchen counter and refill it.
The Black Filters are cleanable. If your Berkey seems to be taking forever to filter the water, consider removing, cleaning and repriming your black filters. To see how to do this, check out Berkey's Instructions for Cleaning Your Black Berkey Filters.
Our Experience With Our Berkey Water Purification System:
Video: Travel Berkey Product Review
This post contains affiliate links. Please see our disclosure for more information.
We've had several RVers tell us how much they loved their Berkey water purification systems. But we had several questions:
-- What does a Berkey do?
-- Do we really need a Berkey?
-- Is a Berkey really that good?
-- Do we have room for a Berkey in our RV?
-- How would we secure the Berkey while traveling?
-- What are the benefits of a Berkey?
-- Are there any downsides to traveling with a Berkey?
-- Does it make financial sense to buy a Berkey?
Since we had so many questions, we decided to start off our full-time RV life without a Berkey and see how things went. Fast forward a few months of full-time RV living, and we were ready to try it out.
Why We Bought our Berkey Water Purification System
What we found was that the water was different everywhere we went. Sometimes it was fine, sometimes it had a weird odor, sometimes it left a ring of something around the glass. We know that part of living a healthy life is to drink a lot of water, but that can be tough when the water is always changing. So we decided to buy a Travel Berkey for our RV.
So What is a Berkey?
Berkey Water Purification Systems purify water. They remove chemicals and other things that are in well water or city water that you might not want to drink. We've heard that you can take water from a fresh-water river, stream or lake and purify it with a Berkey. But I don't think we'll be trying that.
Doesn't Your RV Have a Water Filter? Why Do You Also Need a Berkey?
Yes, our RV has a whole house water filtration system. And we've also used a Brita pitcher to further filter our drinking water. These two filters worked to a point, but we still had times where the local water left rings in our glasses, had a strange smell or just didn't taste good. Our Berkey has solved all of those issues.
What We Like About Our Travel Berkey
It's Easy to Setup: The instructions that come with the Berkey might be a bit confusing, but Berkey has a YouTube channel with very easy to follow video instructions on how to prime your filters and assemble the system. It was really simple.
It's Completely Portable: If we were to decide tomorrow that we wanted to change RVs or move back into a different lifestyle (not going to happen, but let's just say "What if..."), we could just pick up our Berkey and take it with us. It is not attached to or part of the RV in any way.
It Looks Nice On The Counter: The stainless steel finish looks super nice sitting on the counter. It's also easy to wipe off any finger prints.
It is Very Well Made: We were immediately impressed by how well-made the Berkey is. As Cousin Eddie would say in the Vacation movies, "It's a high quality item!"
It Comes Standard With 2 Black Berkey Filters: The Black Berkey Filters are the primary filters in the system. Our Travel Berkey uses 2 of these filters and they came with the system. We did not have to buy them separately. We've been told that we will be able to use them for quite a long time before we need to replace them. They are cleanable as well.
The Water is Great! The purified water that comes from the Berkey is great! It's completely clear, has no odor, leaves no residue and tastes good. It makes it easy for us to drink more water. And as a bonus, the water also makes our coffee and tea taste better as well.
We Are Done With Plastic Water Bottles! Now that we have our Berkey, we don't have to buy plastic bottles of water any more. That saves us money and weight (which is great when you're traveling in an RV), and it's one less thing to have to step around!
You Can Read More Benefits On the Berkey Website
The Downsides to Our Travel Berkey
It Takes Up Counter Space: Our Berkey sits on our RV's counter all of the time. It is too large to store in a cabinet (without taking it apart). But we use it all day, every day so it needs to be accessible anyway.
We Can't Tell How Much Water Is Filtered: Berkey makes an accessory that you can buy separately that allows you to see how much filtered, purified water is available. However, it is glass and attaches to the front of the system, so we opted to go without it.
The Travel Berkey Has Limited Capacity: Since we live in our RV and space is at a premium, we opted for the Travel Berkey. The Travel Berkey is the smallest system, other than a portable system designed for hikers. Ours barely fits under our upper cabinets on the counter for travel, but it does fit! Because it is smaller though, the capacity is limited. We keep a pitcher of purified water in the refrigerator so we always have cold water and refill the Berkey as we use water. That way we never have to wait for purified water to be ready.
What About Travel? Where Do We Stow the Berkey?
This was our biggest holdup when we thought about buying a Berkey. We thought long and hard about how to secure it for travel. At first, we thought we would carry it in the kitchen sink. But after assembling it, that didn't seem like a good idea. So, we secured 2 command hooks to the RV (one on a wall and the other on the bottom of the upper cabinets in the kitchen). We let the Command hooks cure for a couple of days before we added any weight to them. And now, before we hit the road, we slide the Berkey against the kitchen wall on the countertop and secure it in place with a bungee cord connected to the Command Hooks. (See the video above to see us set it up to travel). The Berkey comes with a rubber gasket that gives it good grip on the bottom. We also add water ahead of time so that the lower section will be heavy and the top will be practically empty before we travel.
Would We Buy Another Berkey?
Yes, Yes and Yes again. Honestly, we wish we had bought it earlier in our travels. But, at least we now can really appreciate the difference that it makes. We give our Berkey experience a big thumbs up!
So, How Impressed Are We With Our Berkey?
Like we say in the video, we bought our Travel Berkey. There was no discount, we were not sponsored. This is not a paid endorsement. But we love ours so much (it has truly become a "must have" for us now), that we reached out to Berkey and have joined their affiliate program. If you use any of the links in this post and buy a Berkey system or accessories, we will receive a small commission. There is no additional cost to you. The money that we make from our affiliate sales helps to keep this website active and allows us to continue creating new content to share with you. Thank you.
Additional Filters:
Berkey Flouride Water Filters: Different from the Black Berkey Filters, these filters remove fluoride and aresenic from the water. We've heard folks say that the Berkey does a fine job without these additional filters, but since our water is always changing out on the road, we opted to add them to our system.
