Asklemmy

The US varies widely. Some Americans in this thread tell you their tap water is squeaky clean. Meanwhile, there are places like Flint where the tap water not only is deadly but remains deadly even if you do boil it.

Poland: water is always drinkable from the tap.

US, tap water is perfectly good to drink.

Having visited Iceland a few years ago, Iceland's tap water is the best tasting water I've ever had anywhere. Please take this opportunity to try it while you're there.

Luxembourg here, i'll drink straight from the tap.

We drink straight from the tap here in Scotland. It's great water.

German Here, we have really good Tapwater here.

Im from Newfoundland Canada. The city I live in has a water treatment facility and the tap water is perfectly fine to drink without any filtering or boiling.

Many smaller towns in my province only have natural water sources (lakes/ponds/streams) or wells for their water supply. The town I grew up in was like that up till about 2005-2006ish. It was pretty rare for us to have to boil water though, maybe 3 weeks out of the whole year, a neighboring town with a different water supply had to boil their water for most of the year so there was alot of variability.

I'm from Denmark, and water is safe to drink straight from the tap here.

in Brazil de usually dont boil, but use a traditonal ceramic pot filter.

In USA yes, we drink tap water without boiling as long as we're in an area with safe tap water (most of the population) and not using our own untreated/untested well water. Every once in a while we get alerted to local unsafe tap water. We have a filter on the tap water but haven't always.

I'm in Canada and we drink from the tap.

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

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.

Quebec, Canada. I grew up in a rural area where we had our own artesian well on the plot of land, so not attached to any city infrastructure, and no purification process at all, except what is done naturally from the soil. And guess what? It's the purest water I've ever seen, it taste amazingly fresh and the tap is directly plugged on it.

Moved to a big city and now have to use the city infrastructure, which of course have a huge purification plant and they do tests continuously to make sure it pass a high quality threshold. But even if it's probably cleaner than 90% of the rest if the world, it still have a slight unpleasant taste. I could probably buy a filter, but never bothered.

Buying bottled water is seen as wasteful and also a scam since it's often just tap water they bottled. When my family visited a country where bttled water is common, they were disgusted at how much plastic pollution it creates.

I would hate to have to boil water before every usage, I assume you always keep a few gallons in the fridge to keep some cold? It takes space and energy to prepare, must be annoying. But what I wonder the most is, how to do wash yourselves and your clothes? If the water smells foul, doesn't taking a shower just stink you even more than it cleans?

Just ask someone from there on day one. They can obviously tell and i think this is the best strategy. I bet it's safe like in most parts of middle and northern europe.

Semi-rural American here. Our water comes from a well and is safe to drink. However, it is hard water and we often prefer to either use a purifier or buy purified water for drinking directly.

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

Australian here, never met anyone who boils tap water before drinking it. Some people have filtered water taps installed but our tap water is usually pretty great, I drink probably 2-3 litres of it a day

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

Poland here, tap water is pretty drinkable in cities, not sure about rural areas though, also I personally use Brita filter just to be sure

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.

No, I never drank unfiltered tap water. I have always lived in areas with poor-tasting tap water. It's not necessarily dangerous, but has a high calcium content and isn't the cleanest either.

As a kid, we had a carbon filter on our refrigerator, and that was good enough. When I moved out of my parents house, I started getting those 5 gallon bottles and would refill them at the grocery store.

I eventually got my own refrigerator that had a carbon filter, but I couldn't really go back to a carbon filter once I got used to water filtered by a RO system. It just didn't taste very good. So about a month ago I installed a RO filter under my sink, and now I don't need to drag my bottles to the store anymore. Best of both worlds!

From Singapore. Tap water here is potable but we boil it first out of habit. (But I use tap water for drinking when boiled water has run out).

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.

Venice: we filter it first via some cheal filters. It is very common to own a water mug with a filter embedded here.

Paris: directly from the tap water, though I don't like the taste.

I never drink water out of the tap because I prefer to filter it first. It’s safe to drink but I want it clean and much colder so into a filter pitcher and put that in the fridge

Here in italy we can drink tap water without boiling it first

We filter our tap water here in Korea. Most people do, but as I understand, it's safe to drink it just straight from the tap. It's just better through a machine that gets rid of any lingering chlorine and heats it or chills it for you.