Asklemmy

In the United States, it is a little bit different.

There are "standards" that water quality has to live up to. Do these standards actually meet the criteria for safe drinkable tap water? Not always. This is evident in places like Flint, Michigan and other poorer urban areas.

Some of the tap water can be so bad that people wouldn't dare to drink it even after boiling.

In some areas, the tap water quality is wonderful.

Here is a relatively decent source about the topic as it pertains to the USA. https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/best-tap-water-in-the-us/#:~:text=The%20ten%20states%20with%20the,%2C%20South%20Dakota%2C%20and%20Nevada.

The long story short here, is certain places like Hawaii have extremely clean tap. Other places, like Texas, are notorious for having numerous water quality violations.

It falls down to each individual State and City for maintaining the standards that were set. In my opinion, it it just an easy way for them to waive liability at the end of the day.

X.

I believe in Canada we have high standards for our potable water, unlike the UK for example our water heaters need to be up to par (UK typically has seperate taps AFAIK).

So no need to boil, also if you're trying to get rid of chlorine you can just use Brita filters, carbon filters that restaurants use do the same AFAIK. Also even cities like mine which (at least at some point before now) had way more houses than apartments still chlorinated the entire city's supply.

Filters are insanely good these days. I was thinking about getting a life straw, but there's a slightly more expensive alternative that can do like 500x more filtering before it needs to be replaced, and comes with a pouch you can fill and then pour into a regular water bottle. Life straws are meant to be drank from directly, and the alternatives that company offers are just water bottles with life straws built in - so you put unfiltered water in the bottle itself... Probably gets gross or requires constant cleaning

I grew up on well water and was used to drinking from the garden hose when working out in the yard; but thats southern US for ya.

Now days, jus fill a bottle from the tap and don't really put much thought to it.

Toronto tap water is actually very, very good. Tastes better than most bottled water I've tried. Very high standards here - we are extremely fortunate and I hope the high standards stay for a long, long time.

Water? Like from the toilet? :O

(j/k)

Yes of course it's safe. I drink filtered water from our fridge, but tap is perfectly fine too. I'm from Europe btw.

Here in El Salvador, you can drink tap water safely depending the region you are.

I’ve never boiled tap. It’s safe where I live. I do have a reverse osmosis filter though. But only for taste, and to remove hardness to protect my glassware.

Croatia here,

tap water is completely drinkable and safe without any boiling. Exception are some more remote islands, so if you are going on some island, chekc if the tap water is drinkable.

Fun fact: Croatia actually uses drinkable water for toilets as well, altough i would not drink from a toilet :)

I live in Bavaria, Germany, and I've been drinking tap water here for over 30 years without boiling.

But I live in a rural area. I once had a job in the industrial area of a semi-sized city and the tap water there was sketchy.

Depends, I guess.

I do. When I was a child, I was even confused about why people don't drink tap water but buy them instead from shops or why they boil or someway disinfect them.

Belgium: yes! We drink tap water. Straight from the tap. Hardness varies from city to city. At my home I have a filter to make the water softer. That helps the taste but also keeps all faucets etc running.

I live in the Netherlands and we drink tap water without boiling.

In switzerland, we can drink the tap water without boiling it first.

I’m in Australia and have never boiled tap water before. Sometimes during major storms or flooding you get a boil water alert but these are usually advisory and monitoring shows that in most cases the water is still within legal limits. Of course though you should still boil the water if an alert does go out.

In England we drink straight from the tap. I live in London which has incredibly hard water so it's not the nicest tasting and it will leave white residue on the glass but it's not bad for you.

Scotland here. We don't boil water before use.

I have family down in North West England that do have to do this, though. They live in an area where there is a thin layer of soil and a lot of clay. The water isn't particularly hard but it also doesn't taste very nice if you don't boil it first.

Generally in the west (US/Canada, and most of Europe) tap water is safe to drink. I've been to Iceland and don't remember tap water being a concern. This is something you should double check before every trip though. A good rule of thumb is just going by how developed/rich the country is that you are visiting, with more developed countries usually having potable tap water but this is not a guarantee. (And some countries are far too large and diverse to apply this rule efficiently)

Also asking the locals is not necessarily a good idea either as there immune system might be accustomed to the different bacteria and pollutants in the water. For example drinking tap water in some places in the Middle-East might not be an issue for the locals but as I haven't grown up there I probably wouldn't risk drinking tap if I can avoid it, not to ruin the trip with getting sick.

TLDR: check with your country's official travel recommendations

Edit: someone mentioned bottleded water just being bottled tap water. While this is not uncommon in Europe (not sure about the rest of the world), the water does go through extra steps of filtering and cleaning meaning it might be a bit safer to foreigners.

Australia here - we drink water straight from the tap, but I picked up the habit of drinking boiled water from my frequent trips to Shanghai.

In Sweden, yes tap water is safe without boiling. Might want to filter for taste reasons.

I would drink the water in Iceland without boiling it, probably without a second thought. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it tastes amazing.

Not at all...where I live tap water isn't clean at all. It comes in a white colour with pression. And mining industry contaminated a lot

I’m located in the US and like others have said it’s safe to drink the tap water, but me personally, I run my water through a filter first.

In Canada I don't boil it.

In Vietnam, I do. Although more because I'm always making tea than anything else. Unless it's well water, in which case that's only for doing dishes, I won't drink that.

I did nearly die from cholera some years back, but it was probably not from the tap water specifically. Sanitation and food safety has really improved here in the last decade, I'm happy to say.

Philadelphia, PA, USA. We don't boil it, but I have a filter on the tap. The drinking water here is safe, but it smells funny, and my family filtered the water even back when we lived somewhere with better tasting water.

I lived in Taiwan and was taught to boil. I'm starting to think you probably don't need to but we just grew up not knowing any better. In Australia you don't. I drink out of any tap that's not a rain water tap. Lots of Asians here still buy bottled water or boil water out regardless. So it seems to be out of uninformed fear or habit.

My belief is unless a local government/health authority tells you you can't drink straight from the tap. I'm inclined to believe it's safe.

I have been to Iceland recently and tap water is absolutely fine to drink directly and preferred. No one there buys water. Just make sure you drink the cold water and not the hot one as the hot is from natural thermal springs so may contain some minerals I belive. Just carry your own bottles and you can fill up the cold water from anywhere, even restaurants will refill free.

Straight and fresh from the pipes! Writing from Transilvania, Romania.

Here in the UK we just drink straight from the (cold water only by law due to differring regulations) tap without boiling and that's been the case for decades at the least across the entire nation. There's just no need to boil the water here unless you are cooking.

It's also safe in Iceland, I went there and their water is crystal clear and pure since it's sraight from the glaciers. You could drink out of a random stream there.

Canada here - tap water is just fine, I filter it at home since I prefer the taste but I've never been adverse to drinking it straight

Rural California here. We are on a well and drink from the tap. It gets a mineral taste and smell in the warmer months. Much better tasting then the chlorinated water when we lived in town though.

In the Philippines, we don't drink from the tap. At all. It's quite dangerous and there have been a number of internet personalities that got stomach aches from drinking tap water ^cough^ ^haachama^ ^cough^

Instead, there are a lot of establishments here that sell drinkable water at a fraction of a dollar per 5 gallons.

nyc us here, only boil water if there is a warning due to a pipe break or something.

In France tap water is drinkable and good almost anywhere, the exceptions being in some cities during drought or due to unusual pollution. I actually dislike most mineral bottled water because I find it tastes like something.

I used to live in Thailand, while the authorities say the water is good you'll likely get sick if you drink water straight from the tap. I used to buy my water from a filtering machine near my condo.

US it depends on where you live. I grew up and live now in upstate NY and the tap water is great. In between I lived in Arizona and the water was terrible. I have at different times a water cooler or an undersink reverse osmosis. The water wouldn't make you sick though so you can drink it if needed, it was just very hard and tasted bad.

Norway = Yes. But the fresh water pipes are in the same trench as the sewer pipes, and being 100 years old, the clean water depends on the pressure. This is in Oslo btw..