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A Complete List Of Countries Where You Can And Can't Drink The Tap Water When You Travel

MULTIZ321

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jehb2

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I’m saving this article just because it has a “list” of so many countries. When I think of where I want to travel, I always refer to a map. It’s inevitable that some countries will stick out more than others.
 

stmartinfan

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Even in European countries where water is considered safe, we tend to stick with bottled water because it seems that even just the change in water from what we're used to can be enough to trigger a stomach response.
 

AJCts411

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Some resorts have thier own water purification systems. But even then I use bottled water for everything even brushing my teeth. And then one has to question how were the salad ingredients washed, where did the ice come from?
 

CanuckTravlr

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I notice they include such locations as Barbados and St-Martin/Sint Maarten as countries where it is "unsafe" to drink the tap water, yet Aruba is on the safe list. They are certainly not the same at all as places like the Dominican Republic or Jamaica, where the country itself (and most resorts) warn you not to drink the tap water. We've been drinking the treated tap water in both Barbados and St-Martin/Sint Maarten for decades. The only potentially unsafe water generally in both of those countries is in some private homes or villas where it comes from a private cistern and not the main water system.

I really question how they arrive at these conclusions. The CDC certainly don't have sufficient staff to visit all of these countries. So, at the end of the day, relying on their analysis isn't that much better than relying on the "hearsay" from travellers that have actually been there, that they pooh-pooh in the article. It seems overly cautious to me, but that is also my general feeling about many CDC "warnings". I sometimes wonder if the bureaucrats who decide these things have ever travelled themselves, or just do all their work from some desk in Washington, DC.
 

PigsDad

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I really question how they arrive at these conclusions. The CDC certainly don't have sufficient staff to visit all of these countries. So, at the end of the day, relying on their analysis isn't that much better than relying on the "hearsay" from travellers that have actually been there, that they pooh-pooh in the article. It seems overly cautious to me, but that is also my general feeling about many CDC "warnings". I sometimes wonder if the bureaucrats who decide these things have ever travelled themselves, or just do all their work from some desk in Washington, DC.
Completely agree. To say the water is unsafe across a whole country is most often not true. Heck, I see that the United States is on the "safe" list -- tell that to the people in Flint, Michigan! And Hong Kong is on the "unsafe" list??? Laughable. Like anyplace, there can be safe and unsafe areas -- I would rely more on information from the specific area / resort than this list.

Kurt
 

chapjim

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Completely agree. To say the water is unsafe across a whole country is most often not true. Heck, I see that the United States is on the "safe" list -- tell that to the people in Flint, Michigan! And Hong Kong is on the "unsafe" list??? Laughable. Like anyplace, there can be safe and unsafe areas -- I would rely more on information from the specific area / resort than this list.

Kurt

My wife is Chilean and for the first couple of years in the US, she'd ask if it was okay to drink the water wherever we went (e.g., Dayton and Columbus, OH). In Chile, they are told you can't drink the water in the US. Often it isn't a matter of the water being good or bad, just different.
 

andre10056

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Since I never drink American tap water, but instead always buy bottled water, I'm actually surprised to see any country being listed as undoubtedly safe. And, judging from bottled spring water flying off the shelves, it appears that others are reluctant to drink tap water as well.

And I was drinking bottled water exclusively even prior to recently finding out, as we all have, that Camp Lejeune had badly contaminated water during the entirety of my "stay" there between 1977 and 1980.

Of course, part of the time between 1977 and 1980, we were on "cruises" (quote unquote...our sleeping racks were five high up to an 8 foot ceiling, about 40 men in a 10x10 room) during which we were transported to the Mediterranean and Caribbean for combat training. So maybe during the six month Med cruise and the two month Carib cruise, the Navy ships had good water which we used to fill our canteens. But I doubt it.

So let's not look down our noses at other countries' allegedly bad water. In my opinion, our water ain't so hot, either. :)

Moreover, I think it's overly simplistic to do a black and white analysis in which the conclusion is that an entire country has "good" water, while another has "bad" water. Few things are that black and white and are instead more nuanced.

For example, I participated in a summer university program in Mexico soon after my Marine Corps discharge. There were university professors teaching courses, and other university-affiliated scientific researchers trying to understand the "turista" phenomenon. The latter's conclusion: it's not the water that's bad (as everybody thinks), it's not the water that causes the severe debilitating abdominal cramps and non-stop diarrhea, but instead the outside of fruit and vegetables that have the pathogens. So if you can't peel the fruit and discard the peel, or you don't cook the vegetables, don't eat them.

That was apparently true in Cuernavaca, Mexico, but their research was focused only upon that city.

So to be safe, bottled water is the way to go worldwide, in my opinion.
 

Carolinian

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When they talk about drinking the water, that also includes things like ice in your drinks.

I would say from personal experience that I agree with some but not all of their list. I have travelled to Sint Maarten many times and have never had any problems with their water or ever heard of anyone who did. Having worked and also travelled extensively in Moldova, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine, I would trust the water in their major cities and many minor ones and never heard of any expat having problems with tap water there.

On the other hand, they are spot on as to Russia. My first trip there, I flew in on Finnair, changing at Helskinki and joined the parade of passengers stocking up on bottled water at the Helsinki airport. I was flying to St. Petersburg which has a bug endemic to their water that even makes Russians from other parts of the country sick. Local people are immune to it. The bug has a long gestation period and people are often back home when it strikes and it is a doozy, they say. One passenger on the plane had personal experience with it, and he said he was sick as a dog and the local ER in his home town could not figure out what he had until he told them he had been in St. Petersburg, and then they knew exactly what it was. You even have to be careful in taking a shower, because this bug can get into your body from either end. I did not touch the tap water in Moscow either, but its reputation was not nearly as bad as St. Petersburg.

I did get Montezuma's Revenge on my first trip to Mexico, not remembering that ice is actually frozen water, but some pills got me through it with only one bad day. Since then, if I am leary over the water, I do not get ice in drinks. I had taken a sleeper on the Mexican train from Juarez to Mexico City and brought food with me, assuming the dining car would not really be an option, but found that it had a nice menu with things like New York strip steak and only served the sleeping car passengers who were American tourists and upper class Mexicans so I ate there. I drank cokes in a glass with ice, but should have gotten a beer instead.
 
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