CastAway,<br><br>I certainly don’t disagree with anything you said. I do think that the ability to carry water across distances with no water is more important than the ability to purify it- here in the East, even with a map showing every spring and stream, you can easily be 10 miles from the next one.. and without a map, you can be 3 feet away and not know it... but the two abilities sort of come together. <br><br>We have a similar situation with knives, I think. Many of the mini-kits put forth have very little in the way of a knife- x-acto blades, razor blades, maybe a Gerber LST, but most if not all survival-oriented folks rank a knife as a VERY high priority, and count on carrying something more substantial separately (no one is going to be making fuzz sticks or tent pegs with a razor blade).<br><br>So, for the tiny kits, we really have at least two areas where they’re not adequate. That says to me that if you really need one self-contained kit, something that works *independent* of other assumed carry items, then you need something larger. Maybe not much larger, but not an Altoids tin.<br><br>That still leaves a couple of interesting areas for discussion, though:<br><br>Has anyone, ever, really made a condom or balloon work under realistic conditions, including filling from a trickle, iodine treatment, sealing, reopening, and carrying for serious distance, or can we safely chuck that concept and move on?<br><br>If that doesn’t really work, what is the smallest viable product that will (I’ll see how the military survival water bags I’ve ordered work out, and I’ve read some discussion of IV bags), and why isn’t there something better? It’s hard to believe that in the 21st Century, we have absolutely nothing at all that will reliably hold a liter of water and fold into, say, 3 cubic inches or less, at least initially. That’s pretty sad. The tech has to exist.<br><br>Mylar? Lined Tyvek? Wine box liner? Vacuum seal bags? Grocery plastic bags are pretty tough for their bulk, just too big and no neck… what is that they sell tropical fish in? Suggestions?<br><br>