Asklemmy

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.

In the UK they had separate taps for hot and cold because the cold was safe to drink and the hot was not.

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.

I'm from Chile and we drink tap water without boiling. Some people buy filtered water because they dont like the taste, not because is unsafe.

It shocked me when I visited Peru and Mexico and realized that tap water is not safe there.

In Rome there are literally fountain running constantly in the middle of almost all the streets(old area specially ) of potable whater. Again non stop, people use them allot

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.

Hungarian here. It is safe to drink without boiling. People only boil water for baby formula to be extra safe.

I live in the US in a location where the tap water is safe to drink (not always the case, e.g., Flint Michigan) but I still filter it for the taste (chlorine in the water).

Most municipal water is safe to drink in the US. Ground water depends entirely on where you live and many situational factors (City pollution, water level, etc.).

We will get boil notices from time to time when a contaminant is detected in the water supply. But that's been rare in my experience, after living in several regions in the US.

No one should ever use tap water for netty potting without boiling it though! You can contract a brain-eating amoeba if you don't boil, which has over 97% death rate.

Poland: water is always drinkable from the tap.

Even better, I do not boil I run though and store in a Brita pitcher that should have had a filter change six months ago!

In the US you can typically drink from the tap but I would advise not, some areas are really bad to drink from the tap, but you should always have a filter at the very least. boiling isn't so necessary.

I once visted Austria (Innsbruck to be precise) and the water there was so incredible straight from the tap. It would be ice cold, so fresh and clean. I think they have the best water in the world there.

I visited australia and we had to drink from the tap.

New Zealand, Christchurch. We can drink straight out of the tap BUT it was chlorinated while our crappy infrastructure was being upgraded in recent years. Still is in some parts of the city I think? The actual water is from deep aquifers and was pristine and then it went through our dodgy wellheads which have since been upgraded.

US here. Although we have a water municipality, I still drink bottled water or water through a filter. I had my water tested by third party lab and found out they over chlorinate which leaves a lot of disinfectant byproducts in the water. I’m looking to get a whole home water filter installed to remedy that.

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.

Bermuda here, straight from the tap!

It actually gets collected from rain water on each individual home's roof. The roofs are lime-washed to kill the really nasty stuff as it runs down in to a holding tank under the house. Some times you get dead critters in there, but nothing larger than a small lizard or bug. They tend to sink to the bottom of the tank, below the outlets.

Most Bermudians swear by a "cup of bleach" thrown down there every couple of years. It's in to a tank that's 10,000gal+ at a minimum (mine's over 40,000), so it's basically homeopathy at that point - but the lime-wash works!

The only place you'll want to avoid it in Bermuda is in the City of Hamilton (mains, not great quality), a house with a dirty roof, or in one near the sole power station on the island. This is an on-going fight to get them to adhere to the emissions safety standards they claim to.

White roofs and smoke stack in the picture!

Spanish here. I drink tap water, but I have a filter installed in the faucet, otherwise it tastes a bit funny (it is drinkable though).

Hello Mr Hong Kongnese. I'm a Brit. We don't boil water here and I've visisted Iceland - they don't boil it either.

Diu gau lan tsat hai - Merry Christmas. Enjoy your holiday.

I live in Brazil. When I lived on the farm, father set it up so the water would come from a natural underground mine and it was entirely safe to drink. However, in the town, we always bought gallons of packet water instead of using it from the tap. In the city I drank tap water for some years and didn't die, but the taste of the water changed when we began using a filter (thought it was likely that it was because the thing connecting our tap to the system was made out of rubber and a colony of bacteriae began to grow there).

Still, Brazil as a whole is mid risk for intestinal parasites and everyone is recommended to get a filter or packed water by the UN, and also to take anti-vermin medicine once per year.

Yes. Here in Portugal, water is drinkable without boiling. Of course, water quality varies from region to region, but as it happens, where I live it's quite good :)

UK- we don't boil water here unless there's an issue with the pipes. I got told not to drink the water in places like Spain and Italy as it could make me unwell, but not sure if that's as big a deal now.

New Zealand and yes it's safe to drink without boiling here. I do run the tap for a few seconds to clear out any standing water before drinking anything though.

Where I live in the US, I don't have a need to boil water unless I'm cooking or making tea, and am safe drinking the tap water. I consider myself lucky.

Canada here - I drink water straight from the tap.

Although Canadian tap water is some of the highest quality tap water in the world.