I have watched an eight year old ask for water eleven times in one mile. Not because she was thirsty. Because the bottle was in my tote bag, behind her, and asking was easier than stopping to dig it out. Hattie is my granddaughter. She is eight, she is in third grade, and she spends every Saturday with me while her parents work.
Since the first Saturday in March we have walked the surface trails at Mammoth Cave and the paths at Lost River Cave in town, two to three miles at a stretch. The Owala FreeSip Kids 16 oz is the bottle she carries on the short walks, in the car and to school, and it has been in her hand for about eight months now. Most of what follows is not about mountains. It is about a child who keeps walking.
The bottle she opens herself, first try, without handing it back to you
16 oz insulated stainless steel, push-button lid, a carry loop that doubles as the lock, and a spout that works as a straw or a swig. This is the one Hattie has carried since March.
Amazon See today's price on Amazon →She opens it with one thumb, which is the whole ballgame
The push-button lid is the reason this bottle works on a walk. Hattie pops it, drinks, and pushes it shut without breaking stride or handing me anything. I will be straight with you: the button was stiff for her the first couple of weeks and she needed both hands and a little patience. By the third Saturday she had it. An eight year old who has to fight a lid stops drinking, and a child who stops drinking stops walking well.
The straw lets her drink upright instead of tipping her head back
The FreeSip spout does two jobs. She sips through the built-in straw standing straight up, or she tips it back and swigs from the opening. On a trail the upright sip matters more than it sounds like it should. Tipping a bottle back means stopping, and stopping on a two mile walk is how a good morning turns into a long conversation about whether we are nearly there yet.
The carry loop is also the lock, so closing it is one motion
Owala built the lock into the carry loop. Fold the loop down over the lid and it cannot open. Hattie hooks two fingers through the loop and carries it that way when her other hand is full of the nature journal. We have had exactly one leak in eight months: a small puddle in the Forester cup holder in June, the day she left the lid unlocked and it tipped over. Locked, it has never leaked.
It ends the water conversation on the drive home
Mammoth Cave is about forty minutes from our house. On those Saturdays the bottle stays in the Forester rather than going up the trail, because her pack carries the water on the long walks. That still leaves the ride home, and the ride home used to involve stopping. Now she has her own cold water in the cup holder and we drive straight through. There is a smaller thing too. A bottle that is hers is a bottle she is willing to drink from, and a child who has been sipping all morning comes home in a better temper than a child who has been rationing.
There is still ice in it when you get back to the car
Double-wall insulated stainless steel. After a hot July morning at Lost River, with the bottle sitting in the car and then in her hand for the walk, there was still ice rattling around when we got back to the parking lot. The listing says up to 24 hours. I can only vouch for one July morning in Kentucky, and one is enough to make the point. Warm water in a plastic bottle is a thing a child drinks half of and sets down.
It takes a drop on stone steps and keeps working
In June she dropped it on the stone steps at Lost River. It landed on the base and came up with one small dent. No crack, no split seam, no change in how the lid sits. It still holds cold and it still seals. A plastic bottle from the grocery store would have been a story about a wet backpack and a shorter walk, and I have had enough of those for one lifetime.
Sixteen ounces is a size she can carry herself
The bottle is 8.84 inches tall and 3.24 inches wide, and it weighs 322 grams empty. That is light enough for an eight year old to hold in one hand for a mile without asking me to take it, and the carry loop means she can hook it on a finger and swing her arm like she has not got a care. Too big and I become the porter. Too small and she runs dry before the halfway point on a warm morning.
The wide mouth means you can see that it is clean
The opening is wide enough to drop ice in, wide enough to get a bottle brush down, and wide enough that I can look inside and see the bottom. That sounds like nothing until you have owned a narrow bottle you cannot see into and started guessing. I wash the cup by hand and put the lid on the top rack, and I have never once had to wonder what is growing in there.
It gives her a job, and a child with a job walks further
She is responsible for the bottle. It goes in her hand when we leave the car, she checks that the lid is locked, and she decides where it sits when we stop. I taught third grade for thirty one years and I will say this plainly: a child who is carrying something for the walk is a child who is on the walk. A child carrying nothing is a passenger, and passengers ask how much further about every four minutes.
It takes one thing out of your own bag
Before March I carried the water for both of us, which meant a bottle rolling around in my tote and a paperback that got soaked when the old one leaked. Now my bag holds my own things and nothing else. That is the part nobody puts on a product page, and it is the part I notice every single Saturday: one less item on my shoulder, one more thing she is handling herself.
What I'd Skip
I would skip the idea that this bottle is the water for a long summer walk. Sixteen ounces goes fast on a hot day, and on a three mile morning at Mammoth Cave Hattie's water rides in her pack, not in her hand. The Owala is the bottle for the short walk, the car and school. Buy it for those jobs and you will be pleased with it. Buy it as the only water on a four mile July walk and you will spend the morning refilling it.
I would also skip buying a bigger size for a small child to grow into. A bottle a child cannot lift comfortably ends up in your bag, which puts you right back where you started, carrying water for a person who could have carried it herself. Skip flavored drinks and anything but water. Skip hot drinks entirely, since this one is built for cold. And skip expecting the push button to feel natural on day one. Two weeks of stiff thumbs is normal, and then it is not a problem again.
The lid has been locked in her hand for eight months. The one puddle it ever left was the day she left it unlocked.
Start with the bottle she will actually carry, not the one you will end up carrying
16 oz, insulated stainless steel, 322 grams empty, a lid she can lock with the same loop she carries it by. Eight months of Saturdays behind this one.
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