Our Custom RTIC Trip Water Bottles

Kara says I love a theme party, and she's not wrong. Before a big trip I like to have something that makes it feel like our trip. For us, that's custom water bottles from RTIC.

Why we do it

The theme-party part is real, but the bottles earn their place for practical reasons too:

• Cold water all day. The bottles are insulated, so water stays cold for a long time. Traveling as a family of five means a lot of time on boats, trails and beaches, and everyone has cold water with them the whole day.
• Clean water where the tap isn't safe. This is the big one. In places without clean drinking water, we fill all five bottles from a clean source in the morning, and everyone is covered for the day.
• Durable. They hold up to the knocks that come with travel.
• Reasonably priced. Even with the customization the prices are very reasonable, which matters when you're buying five at a time.
• No more "whose is this?" Every bottle has a name on it, so five identical bottles don't turn into an argument.
• A souvenir we actually use. Magnets and T-shirts end up in a drawer. The bottles come home and go back into daily life, and every time we fill one we remember the trip.

The design

Each trip gets its own badge: our family name at the top, something from the destination in the middle, and the place and year underneath. For the Galápagos it had to be an iguana. Each person's name goes near the bottom, so the set matches but every bottle is someone's own.

RTIC lets you customize their bottles with your own design, which is what makes the whole thing possible.

Already packed: French Polynesia

The bottles for this December's French Polynesia trip are already done. This time the middle of the badge is the catamaran we'll be sailing, a Bali 4.5, in front of a volcanic peak and palm trees.

Next up is Bonaire. Watch this space.