water

You need enough water for each person, each day, cooking and enough to do the dishes as well. If you are just hanging out in camp you are not going to be drinking as much per day compared to doing long hikes each day.

A good general rule for hiking is 1 gallon/person/day. If it is super hot you will need more, but that is a good starting point for minimums.

We have two plastic six gallon containers with spouts on them that we have in the car. We then transfer the water into either a smaller spouted container to do dishes and wash hands with, or put into our camelbaks for hiking. There are lots of options for containers and we have used a lot of different ones over the years. Most National Parks and campgrounds will have spigots you can fill up at. Sometimes you have to get creative when you go through towns to find some water. We have filled up at visitor center's kitchens and gas stations spigots. If you have a filter you can use it, but it will take a long time to get the quantity of water you will need. You can also buy chlorine tablets to treat the water if that is your only option. We prefer to load up before we get to our camping site.