>>101317Yeah, water is pretty easy to do on the cheap. There's nothing wrong with just carrying a couple store-bought bottles of water, or refilling, say, a gatorade bottle. A buddy of mine gave me a couple empty Franzia wine bags for water bags/pillows, an idea that another Anon shared with us in a pillow thread (or was it the tips and tricks one?).
>Cooking:I was actually mention stoves in my earlier reply, but I felt I was getting too wordy. If all you want to do is boil water, google "fancy feast alcohol stove": costs maybe a buck or two to make (including some sort of foil/aluminum flashing wind screen), and will boil water (albeit slowly) in temperate conditions. Or you can spend about 10 bucks on an Esbit-style solid-fuel stove [pic related]. I just bought one and took it out on a weekend, and I really enjoyed it. I own a canister stove and white gas stove, but I really enjoyed how compact and simple it was. Boils water slowly (10-12 minutes, or one tab), and I guess you'd be kind of limited in how else you could cook on it, but for the price it's a good initial investment.
If you're just going to do some casual camping/backpacking and you want a proper stove, then I suggest you start with a good, packable canister stove. Here I recommend just going ahead and buying a quality brand. I own the MSR Pocket Rocket, paid about $40 for it. It and comparable products are really simple to set up and use, and offer good heat/flame control. They're not that much more expensive than cheaper, bulkier or less reliable options (in the $20 range), so I'd just go ahead and pay for something compact and sturdy. Haven't field tested any of the cheap ones, though, so maybe some are good bargains. I know there's a stove on amazon for under $10, made in china, but it had very mixed reviews.
