Toilets
Discover Toilets
The daily need for a toilet can be a frustrating challenge for travellers. While you likely know where public toilets are (or where they're missing) in your home town, this is not the case when traveling to places you're unfamiliar with. When visiting different cultural spheres, you may actually not be able to identify toilets or know how they work. While one of human's most basic needs has to be taken care of no matter where you are, the way it is actually done can differ wildly from place to place, sometimes even within one country. From fancy self cleaning toilets in Japan to nothing more than what you bring with you to dispose of human waste or – well – a hole in the ground when leave-no-trace camping, there is a wide variety, that you should be at least aware of before heading out.
What to Experience in Toilets
Taste of Toilets...
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Essential Information
Getting There
Multiple OptionsNot available...
Getting Around & Staying
Money & Budget
While in some countries toilets are available free of charge almost everywhere except in the wilderness, in other places you will be expected to pay, following the old Latin saying "pecunia non olet" ("money does not stink"), which was indeed coined after the first toilet tax was introduced. The amount you will have to pay will usually oscillate in the "small change" range; if you don't have a low denomination local coin, it's likely that getting change will be time-consuming, burdensome or impossible, so make sure to always have the proper amount with you. If you're lucky, a change machine may be provided at the entrance. Sometimes there's not a fixed amount, but just a tip jar, and it's up to you how much you pay or whether you pay at all.
Language & Talk
Since it's such an essential need, along with "please" and "thank you", one of the first phrases any traveler should learn in the local language is "Where is the toilet?". Since many cultures don't like talking plainly about their dirty business, it's incredibly common for there to be a lot of euphemistic names for the room where you go to do your business. Even the plain English word "toilet" came from French toilette "small cloth", used to protect your clothes while shaving or doing your hair (from which we get "toiletries"). In English, the word "toilet" often refers only to the receptacle, but when you're asking where to go, a different word is often used for the room it's in.
Safety Information
Safety Overview
Eventually children become old enough to use public toilets unsupervised, but there's no agreed-upon age at which this happens; depending on the parent and child it could be any age from 4 to 10. It may depend on the situation, too; a huge busy toilet at a sports arena is a very different environment from one in an uncrowded restaurant. This can be tricky when a solo parent has to accompany their child of the opposite gender, and single-occupancy or family toilets aren't available. Probably the most common solution is to take children into the toilet matching the parent's gender. Less common is for the parent to enter the toilet matching the child's gender; to avoid alarming other adults (particularly for men entering the women's room), it may be wise to take some precautions such as checking if the toilets are empty, making an announcement like "Dad and daughter coming in", or leaving doors open so it's apparent that you're there.
Glimpses of Toilets
white toilet bowl with cistern
blue and white no smoking sign
a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and bathtub
Two white ceramic urinals are mounted on an orange-tiled wall in a public restroom. The urinals are evenly spaced and symmetrically aligned against a backdrop of small square tiles.
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white ceramic toilet bowl with cover
Toiletten signage
a red text that reads toilets on a black background
black and silver pendant lamp
a toilet in a bathroom
white toilet bowl with cistern
blue and white no smoking sign
a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and bathtub