Jennifer Allen
Vacuum insulated water bottles are a fantastic way to keep your water cold all day long. Here are our favorite bottles for every situation.
A vacuum insulated water bottle is essentially a Thermos but designed with more of a water bottle form factor and portability in mind. They’re great for keeping your water cool, no matter what the weather is like around you. Whether you want to to keep your water cold on a hike or you just hate coming back to your car to a plastic bottle filled with hot water, there’s a bottle for you.
Best Overall Insulated Bottle: Hydro Flask ($30)
The Hydro Flask offers everything you could need from a good quality vacuum insulated water bottle. It has a powder coat exterior, so it’s easy and solid to grip onto, without any risk of condensation developing. It’s the right size for fitting in your car’s cup holder or your bike’s bottle rack. You can buy it in sizes ranging from 18oz to 24oz in the sports-bottle form factor (but if you find you like the product and want to keep even more water cold all day, they have a portly 64oz model too, which we included as our favorite high-volume option below).
Thanks to its honeycomb insulation, it keeps drinks cold for up to 24 hours or hot drinks for up to 12 hours. There’s room too for tossing in some ice cubes to keep things extra cold. It comes with a leak-proof cap, but you can choose to upgrade to a bite valve or bite stem if you want them.
Most Stylish Insulated Bottle: Corkcicle Canteen ($33)
If you’d like a good insulated water bottle that looks a bit more stylish than your typical steel sports bottle, then the Corkcicle Canteen is a good choice of water bottle for you. It’s sleeker and far more attractive looking than most other utilitarian looking water bottles thanks to the cocktail-shaker profile and the wide variety of different colors you can get it in.
It’s not just pretty either. It has three layers of insulation, which means no condensation and comfy hands whether you’ve filled it with cold or piping hot water. It can keep your drinks cold for over 25 hours or hot drinks hot for over 12 hours. Rounding off things, it also has a leak-proof threaded screw top and easy to grip sides.
Best Wide Mouth Insulated Bottle: BearGrylls Wide Mouth ($25)
Sometimes, it’s useful to have a wide mouth bottle rather than a narrow opening or bite valve. That’s particularly the case when it comes to hot drinks when you might want to take the lid off and let it cool a bit (or sip more gingerly) or cold drinks where a wide mouth makes it easy to drop in big ice cubes. Wide mouth bottles are also easier to clean because you can use a regular old dish brush instead of a narrow bottle brush. The BearGrylls Wide Mouth Triple Wall Vacuum Insulated Water Bottle is a great fit here.
It’s made from scratch-resistant food grade steel that means it never retains the taste or odor of its contents, with an extra-durable powder coated finish, so it’s easy to grip onto. It’s also lighter than many other water bottles, weighing just under 13oz. And yes, it’ll keep your beverages at the appropriate temperatures. A hot drink will stay hot for about 12 hours while cold drinks stay cool for 24 hours.
Best Insulated Bottle with Bite Valve: CamelBak Raven Canteen ($24)
For the unfamiliar, a bite valve is like a smarter straw. It self seals so you can easily bite onto it to drink then release your hold, and not worry about the contents spilling out. There’s a lid too so that it becomes leak-proof as well as spill-proof. That’s ideal for when you’re on the move and in a rush.
The CamelBak Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Raven Canteen is the best of the bunch. It has a capacity of 20 oz, which is good enough for most purposes, and it has an easy grip, which means you can hold it with one hand without any issue. Better yet it combines the CamelBak bite valve system—a design well refined over time by the company—with great insulation. It’s ideal for active folk who want to be able to drink fast.
Best High Volume Insulated Bottle: Hydro Flask 64 oz ($60)
For those times when you need serious hydration, there’s the Hydro Flask 64oz bottle. As you’d expect, it’s not particularly lightweight (at 32 ounces it’s almost three times as heavy as most of the other picks on our list), but it’s perfect for when you need to transport a lot of liquid on your hikes or camping trips.
Thanks to the same double-walled honeycomb vacuum insulation found in the smaller Hydroflask models, it keeps hot drinks hot for up to 6 hours and cold drinks for up to 24 hours. There’s also a powder coated exterior so that it’s easy to grip onto and there’s a carry strap too.
Like with other Hydro products, you can also upgrade the lid to a Flip lid or Straw Lid depending on your needs.
Best Insulated Bottle with Temperature Indicator: Daway Smart Bottle ($37)
We’ve been big fans of the DAWAY Smart Bottle for a while now, and for a good reason. While the prominent feature, the temperature gauge, is a novel way to see just how cold the bottle is keeping your water, the really clever feature is a built-in hydration reminder. If you have the best intention to drink more water but always get sidetracked with work, it’ll give you a little nudge every two hours.
The DAWAY bottle also has a timer function and alarm reminder, which gives you a nudge every 2 hours to encourage you to drink more regularly. The bottle charges through a magnetic charger with it only taking about 90 minutes to charge fully. You’re then good to go for up to 30 days, so it’s never an inconvenience.
On top of the extra features like the temperature indicator and the timer it, of course, keeps your water nice and cold. It’ll keep water chilled for up to 24 hours or hot for up to 12.
