HYDAWAY Collapsible Water Bottle (17 oz) Review

Hydration is key to a good trip, whether that’s to the office, store, or around the world. But while you probably don’t mind carrying your favorite chunky insulated water bottle to the office, you may feel differently about lugging those extra ounces and grams around an amusement park or a large city. It’s amazing how heavy things get after a few hours of carrying them around, and why bother hauling an empty bottle around if you’re not using it?

That’s where the best collapsible water bottles come in handy. They give you a way to stay on top of your hydration without weighing you down or taking up extra space in your travel daypack. Plus, they usually get smaller as you drink from them, so they’re taking up less space as you use them—bonus!

However, there are a few sacrifices to be made when opting for something that compresses as you go; namely, insulation and stability. So, after drinking from grownup Capri Sun pouches, we were interested to give the latest HYDAWAY Collapsible Water Bottle (17 oz) a try. And after filling up at home, the office, and a few sporting events, we’re ready to share our thoughts.

The Rundown

But first, let’s talk about how the HYDAWAY Collapsible Water Bottle works. It’s made with food-grade silicone and BPA-free plastic. Most of the bottle is silicone, and it comes in various colors, from the Fern green we’re testing to several shades of blue, a pinky red, purple, and black.

The plastic comes into play on the lid, specifically on the flip-up spout and the flip-up handle. That handle is useful for carrying the bottle around, but it also helps open the cap. It closes pretty tightly to prevent leaks—and it works quite well at that—so it sometimes takes a little effort to open it back up for a refill.

The bottle has an accordion-like shape that collapses down to a 1.7-inch tall disc. To extend it, hold the top of the bottle and pull it up while holding the ridged bottom in your other hand. It’s fatter around the middle than at the top and bottom when extended, and we think there are a few reasons for that.

First, holding onto the firm ring around the center ensures that you don’t accidentally squeeze the bottle and shoot water out of the cap, which we did when we grabbed it closer to the top. Second, the bottle would have a more pyramid-like shape if it was just broader at the bottom and narrowed toward the top (which it must in order to collapse), so HYDAWAY may be aiming for a narrower, bottle-like design by splitting the difference and putting the extra bulge in the middle. Either way, it’s not very easy to tip over when it’s sitting on a table, desk, or other flat surface. It’s about as easy to tip over as a similarly-sized standard bottle.

That’s also where they’ve printed the HYDAWAY name, with a water droplet logo above it. The same logo is on the spout, as well, which brings us to a note about drinking from the bottle: Even though it flips up to look like you could suck on it like a straw, you must tip the bottle up as you suck since there’s no actual straw going into the bottle. Additionally, if you’re parched and take a looooooooong drink, the bottle will start collapsing on you by itself. It’s not uncomfortable; it just surprised us the first time. However, it doesn’t magically spring back into shape when you release the pressure of your mouth; you must pull it back open from the bottom to refill.

Packability

Packability is ultimately the reason for opting for a collapsible water bottle, right? If you didn’t care how much space it took up or how heavy it was, you would probably just carry a trusty Hydro Flask Standard Mouth bottle wherever you go (and maybe you do because you like your water icy cold). But if you’re going to be on your feet all day walking from the Bronx to Staten Island, through the four parks of Walt Disney World, or even just exploring the zoo with your kids, you might want something you can tuck into the pocket of your sling or even travel jacket (as long as it has large enough pockets). The hockey-puck-sized HYDAWAY Collapsible Water Bottle can do just that.

It’s also good to bring along for days when you’re not sure if you’ll need a water bottle because it won’t weigh you down just waiting for you to fill it up. This, of course, means that you’ll need a source to fill up your bottle, so packing it for a day hike is not recommended unless you’ll be walking past The Berenstain Bears’ house and can pop in and ask for a refill. Instead, save it for days when you know water fountains or sinks will be handy.

Oh, and if you’re feeling a little meh about your bottle spout bouncing around the outside of your travel backpack or the inside of your tote bag, you can get a Travel Case to keep it clean and give you a carabiner for easy attaching wherever you want. HYDAWAY also sells a Hydration Travel Pack with both a bottle and a case, so you can just make one purchase if you know you’ll want a case. We liked using ours.

Quick Comparison

There are quite a few collapsible water bottles on the market. However, we judge them all, including the HYDAWAY Collapsible Water Bottle, against one of our favorites, the Vapur Eclipse Water Bottle, a Pack Hacker Pick. It’s a 1-liter “bottle” that shrinks to just the size of its cap. We put the word “bottle” in quotes because it is much more of a bag with a lid—one of those Capri Sun styles we mentioned earlier—than an actual bottle.

Unlike the HYDAWAY, you can’t really set the Vapur Eclipse down, and it is a bit squishy to drink from. You get used to it quickly, though, and it has a built-in carabiner on its cap that you can use to hang it from a bag or to hold the rolled-up empty bottle between drinks. It also has double the capacity of the HYDAWAY, so you don’t have to stop so often to refill. However, you can also get the HYDAWAY in 25-ounce, tumbler, and pint-sized versions.

We have carried the Vapur Eclipse all around the world and find it to be a great option for hydration on demand. Its cap lets you pour the drink into your mouth instead of the half-pour, half-suck you must do to drink from the HYDAWAY, and we like how much smaller it gets. However, if you want something a little sturdier and made of silicone instead of polyethylene and nylon, the HYDAWAY is a good option.