There is something to be said for traveling in the US. You don’t have to worry about being able to plug in your electric gizmos, but most importantly whether it’s Key West or Seattle you’ll always find a sit-down toilet where you can flush toilet paper and drink the tap water (although I have gotten mildly sick drinking untreated well water, to the point I avoid it), and can eat at a resteraunts without worry.
What’s the situaion like in Europe? I know northwestern Europe probably exceeds even the standards of the US but I’ve heard that things get dodgier the farther south and east you go. Can you eat lettuce in Poland. Flush TP in Greece? Not find any squatty potties in Rome? Drink the tap water in southern Spain?
I remember seeing a sign in a gas station in northern Iowa “please throw toilet paper into the toilet”. Iowa has a bunch of Mexicans working in the meat packing plants and such that were apparently following old habits.
As a Brit, as a kid I was told to not drink the water in Spain, and this is partly fear of the foreign and because their water is different to what we’re used to so takes some getting used to, for some people. Also, in a lot of countries, don’t necessarily assume that the water in the bathroom is supposed to be drinking water - it might well be just fine for general usage, but not for drinking water. That even goes for some older buildings in the UK, where hot water, for example, will come from a tank in the attic and might have been standing for days or even longer, whereas cold water is directly piped in.
FWIW, in the UK you won’t be able to plug in any electrical gizmos in the bathroom, except for specific shavers with low-voltage connectors specially made for use in bathrooms, and only some bathrooms have those. Public toilets won’t. You won’t find normal electric sockets in UK toilets or bathrooms.
Greece generally does have flushing toilets, but you’re supposed to put the paper in a bin next to the toilet. Nava will be here soon to tell you all about Spanish loos.
Poland - not SE Europe - has, IME, flushing toilets that you can put paper down. Same for Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean about squatty potties. Do you mean like a long-drop toilet? The link says pit toilet, but it’s what I’d call a long-drop and have only seen at Glastonbury. You squat over a hole and can see the sewage underneath it. I haven’t seen any of those anywhere else in Europe - perhaps they’re there in some remote regions.
One of the joys of travelling is getting to know the quirks of the local toilets. Seriously! And a lot of people (that I know) frequent McDonald’s just to use a toilet they’re familiar with.
I am aware of the electrical differences. I assume If I want to go to Europe someday, since my equipment (computer, shaver, battery chargers) are dual voltage non grounded I’d just have to get a UK to US and a Europlug to US adapters.
My sister is interested in going to southern Europe someday, but I don’t know if we ever will so this is more curiosity than practality. I know I never want to go to Mexico since it seems you’re virtually guaranteed to get sick there and Florida has nice beaches too, but I’m assuming even going to Greece or Romania you’re more likely than not going to be OK.
Squat toilets- two footrests with a hole in the floor. My understanding is they’re not common in mainland Europe compared to Africa and Asia, but there are a few in the sourthern and eastern parts.
It’s very much like northern Iowa. It’s good that you mentioned that, even though some people might dismiss it as totally irrelevant. Your northern Iowa experience will stand you in good stead.
You might want to give Spain a miss, since it is quite a lot like Mexico. They even speak Mexican there.
I’ve travelled in Spain, Italy, and Portugal and have never seen toilets vastly different from the North American variety there (although the flush mechanism might be somewhat different – lever vs. chain vs. little plunger vs. water-saving mechanism with two buttons with coy little symbols indicating which one you’re supposed to use for number 1 vs. number 2). Admittedly, though, I was only travelling in cities.
The showers, on the other hand – that was a different story.
In most of Spain, tap water is perfectly fine. There are some coastal and island locations which get it from seawater distillation; it’s still within health regs, but tastes salty, so bottled water is very popular in those areas. If a location’s tap water is not drinkable, there will be a sign saying “agua no potable”. It may have a drawing of a glass of water with an X on it, or of a glass of water with the basic “forbidden” traffic sign shape. I’ve most often seen these in garden faucets - why would anybody try to drink from a garden faucet set about 8" over the floor is beyond me, but hey, they’re still obligated to tell people not to do it (those faucets don’t plug into the town’s domestic supply).
You may encounter, very very occasionally (it’s happened to me only once and I’ve lived here for over 30 of my 43 years) a place with horrid pipes where they request that TP not be flushed. The sign will be handwritten, say something along the lines of “por favor, depositen el papel en la papelera” and have an arrow pointing to the paper basket.
In women’s public bathrooms there will be a self-closing waste can specifically for female hygiene products; these are common throughout Europe.
I encountered one in Paris just a little over a decade ago. They’re unusual, but not non-existent.
Fairly common in ex-Yugoslavia, and in Russia they’re everywhere. Around five years ago I was in Samara, which according to Wiki is the sixth largest city in Russia, well to the east of Moscow but still in the European part of the country. They had a brand spanking-new train station which was the pride of the region, an incredibly modern station much nicer than many of those you find in Western Europe. And yet… it still had those hole-in-the-floor toilets, and an attendant who handed you a small wad of toilet paper as you went in. (Thank god I didn’t need to do a number two…)
To this day I can’t get over the fact that they spent so much money to build a modern station and didn’t think to put proper toilets in it.
When it comes to overblown traveler worries this ranks right up there, accept the fact you will adjust to the local bacteria. Unless you’re traveling to an area with no infrastructure or rampant cholera or something pack some OTC loperimide for if you need it and chill. Talk to the locals about the water and realize they are still alive, you’ll live.
*If you have some special medical concern like an immune disorder your doctor should advise you.
As a general rule I’ll bin the paper if it’s obviously the thing to do upon entering the cubicle, won’t drink from the tap anywhere apart from home, and use the toilets in restaurants or bars rather than the public lav. You can time visits with coffee and meal breaks with a bit of planning ;).
I’ve traveled in Greece for about two months total at this point. A little bit of it was in Athens, but most of it was in little to medium-sized towns in the Peloponnese.
I think you’ll basically be fine. I’ve never come across water that was unsafe to drink, or uncooked food that was unsafe to eat. If ever you did, bottled water is everywhere, and usually served instead of tap water at restaurants, and you’ll always find cooked food at restaurants.
As for public restrooms, in all my time there, I encountered a squat toilet exactly once, and a restroom without toilet paper exactly once. I’d carry a little toilet paper around in my purse just to be safe, but it’s not a major inconvenience. Never had a problem flushing toilet paper.
I’ll provide the perspective on Hungary: flushing toilets, TP goes in the toilet, tap water is okay for drinking. There was no place in Central or Eastern Europe (and I’ve been to almost all the countries there) where I was warned not to drink the water. (I haven’t been to Ukraine, though, and I hear conflicting accounts as to what to do there.) The only anomaly is that I do recall is seeing squat toilets in parts of Bosnia, but all the places (private residences) we actually stayed at in Sarajevo and Mostar had Western style toilets.
In SE Europe, I’ve traveled in Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Monte Negro, and Croata. No problems with toilets in any of those places. The hardest part is finding an available one. But I don’t recall having to use a squatter in any of those countries. I even flushed the TP in Greece (are you sure I wasn’t supposed to??). Hell, Albania, though its paved roads were scarce, the toilet was normal.
Electricity… pretty much expect to never see an open, available outlet anywere in Europe outside of your hotel room. Not even at the airports! Electricity is expensive. Nobody is going to leave an open outlet just sitting out for anyone to mooch off of.
Maybe we ran across the same one but I also used one in Paris about a decade ago. It was in a restaurant and I was a little surprised that the restroom was just a stone room with a hole in the floor and not much else. Maybe that is the only one there but I doubt it.
I found about 10 years ago in Italy, that some of the older, quainter establishments had the squat toilets (the small shop in the Carrara quarry, the public toilets behind the Leaning Tower in Pisa… More quaint was the short length of garden hose for flushing. Almost everywhere had normal toilets. Apparently I was told, squatters became more common the further south you went.
What I did notice was that european toilets tended to have much smaller pools in the bowl, so you were more likely to leave “skid marks” on the dry part; many had that brush nearby for cleaning. That was a lot less common in N. American hotels with the bigger water area.
There was a long discussion a month or two ago about paperwork disposal. I never heard of that custom until I went to China. My theory is that purpose-made flushable paper is an extravagant luxury outside the 1st world when you have newspapers and other disposables; the habit of having a separate bin for used toilet paper is likely a side effect of the habit of anything but Charmin to plug toilets. Rather than re-educate people (“this is Ok to flush, That is not!”) they keep up the practice. I note that in 5-star hotels in China, where all the TP is soft flushable, there were no bins - so I doubt its the sewage processing plants. Besides, the sewage plants in N. America have no problem with this stuff, why would Chinese plants?
Chinese public toilets will often have a row of squats and 1 or 2 sitters at the end; western women point them out to each other, I was told.
The most interestingly different toilet was an outdoor one outside a monastery near Lhasa, Tibet. A small stream ran in a trough in the floor through the middle of a row of stalls in a slight downhill. If you needed to squat, you faced one wall and the result floated down the stream, down the hill, to who knows where. But there was still a bin for the paper…
At the Potala there was a toilet that was a slit between two planks, in an outhouse sticking out of the wall - with a 60-foot drop down to the dry, smeared hillside.
Believe it or not, there is more to look at in Mexico than beaches and you are certainly not guaranteed to get sick there. You may get sick, but if you take reasonable precautions it is by no means a foregone conclusion.
