2P to pee and other travel toilet tales

Fumbling for coins, waving arms to keep the lights on, balancing while squatting, rummaging in your bag for toilet paper, solving the “how to flush” mystery, getting locked in a stall. Anyone who has left the familiarity of their own bathroom to travel abroad will have toilet tales. Relieving yourself can be an adventure in its own right, for the intellect and the senses, never mind the thigh muscles.

I´ve shared a squat toilet outhouse with nesting Thai chickens, deciphered cryptic and funny signs, sat on Canadian thunderboxes with splendid views, encountered historic and modern holes in stone, visited a Spanish toilet museum, admired gorgeously tiled washrooms in Portugal and New Zealand, learned how the Romans wiped in Malta, and had my olfactory organs abused on six continents. 

On a trip with a group of teachers to see monarch butterflies overwintering on Mexican mountaintops, we quickly adopted “2P to pee” as our mantra, always keeping two pesos in our pockets to pay for toilet access. Many washrooms had a long high boxy bench, with toilet seats atop. Low dividers separated them but, as you sat, you could still see everyone else doing their business.

Here´s what I´ve discovered about toilets on my travels, including signs, payments, types of toilets, flushing mechanisms and other mysteries, bidets, historic toilets, and memorable bathrooms, plus six handy-dandy tips. But we start with finding the toilet.

Finding the toilet

Note the tiny “S” for Senhoras (Ladies) and “H” for Homens (Men) above the doors for these public washrooms under a road in Peniche, Portugal. “WC,” for the British term water closet, is also widespread in Portugal, like on this pretty blue-tiled sign in the Azores.

First, you must find the washroom and, to do that, you must know what it´s called in that locale. Washroom, bathroom, restroom, lavatory, toilet, loo, WC (water closet), powder room, ladies’ room, men´s room´, the gents, the john, porcelain throne, can, dunny, the necessaries, the facilities. In the great outdoors, you might encounter an outhouse, porta-potty, thunderbox, comfort station, crapper, bog, latrine, honey bucket. On a boat, it´s the head.

You can “see a man about a horse,” “check the plumbing,” “pop a squat,” or “visit the conveniences.” I hadn´t realized, until doing research, that “washroom” is considered Canadian.

And all that´s just in English.

Washrooms usually reflect the local culture and materials. This restaurant washroom in Talasnal, one of Portugal´s schist villages, has schist stone walls and typical blue-and-white tiles. Schist happens!

One of the first things to learn in another country is:

• “Onde fica o banheiro, por favor?” Portuguese
• “Où se trouvent les toilettes, s’il vous plaît ?” French
• “¿Dónde están los baños, por favor?” Spanish
• “Dove sono i servizi igienici, per favore?” Italian

Of course, sign language works too, when you simply can´t wrap your tongue around a difficult language. Hands over your privates, sway a bit, then shrug your shoulders in a questioning way – that usually does it.

The second things to learn are the words and short forms for “Men” and “Women.” My nephew walked into the room marked “M” in Mexico City, only to discover that stood for “Mujeres” (Women).

Even doggy travellers get washrooms! Despite having no canine companion, I nipped into this astroturf relief area in the New Jersey, U.S.A. airport to check it out.

In Thailand, in a remote northern hill tribe village, I used sign language and a woman pointed me down a path to a small hut. I ducked my head under the overhanging thatch and discovered the chicken coop. Back outside, I looked around. Couldn´t find the toilet. I went back in, further past the chickens on their nesting boxes, and there it was. A really clean squat toilet!

The concept of a squat toilet doesn´t bother me. My problem is that I can´t squat right down low with my feet flat; I end up on my toes, swaying as I try to balance. The chickens got a merry show.   

Later, in a Thai restaurant in the city of Chiang Mai, my daughter Rachel, then seven years old, had to go, so I went with her to help balance on the inevitable squat toilet. I squatted behind her for support. Suddenly, she started to fall, pushing me over too so I grabbed at whatever I could to hold on. Unfortunately, it was the flushing lever. Water (I hope) sprayed all over both of us!   

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign…

A washroom in Queenstown – the adventure capital of New Zealand – featured bungee jumper signs.

I love the sense of humour displayed by washroom signs around the world. Bungee jumpers in New Zealand, figures holding canoe paddles in Ontario´s canoe museum, flappers and gangsters, aliens, and asexual figures denote the men´s, women´s or any-gender washrooms.

Other signs have funny sayings or instructions. For example, arrows pointing to the men´s and women´s washrooms, with the sign: “Men to the left, because women are always right.”

Many places recognize gender fluidity these days, with signs saying “Whatever. Just wash your hands.” I like that.

A handy Lisbon airport sign tells you how busy the washroom is. Hard to believe the men´s is busier than the women´s…

Other signs help you learn the local protocols and traditions.

Many countries, for example, don´t want you to throw toilet paper in the toilet (never mind paper towels, sanitary products or garbage) because it clogs sensitive plumbing. Bathrooms in Portugal, Spain, Central and South America, Africa, and Asia often have a wastepaper basket beside the toilet to take your used toilet paper.

Washrooms in Greece and Portugal say, “Please don´t put paper in the toilet.”

Signs address sensitive plumbing, female paddlers, and potential criminals.

But not throwing toilet paper in the toilet is much harder than you´d think.

“Don´t throw! Don´t throw! Don´t throw!” I tell myself repeatedly as I´m wiping. And then, guess what?! I drop it in the toilet! It´s so instinctual that it´s a difficult challenge to train myself otherwise.

I´ve seen signs in North America asking people to please not stand on the toilet seat. Aimed at people familiar with squat toilets, the graphics show a big red X over a person squatting on the toilet seat and a big green check mark on a person sitting with their bum on the seat.

Pay to pee

The municipal toilet cabin at Coimbra´s train station included water to wash hands (right) and toilet paper (centre) above the white toilet. (The blue rectangle covers my business; the toilet automatically flushed after I Ieft the cabin, so I couldn´t take a photo before.)

At the Coimbra (Portugal) train station, I was desperate to go. All I could find was a metal cubicle at the parking lot edge. I´d seen these types of public toilets before in Paris and London, but I´d never used one so I relished the adventure!

After reading the Portuguese instructions, I inserted my one-euro coin and the door magically opened. In I went. It was immaculately clean, still damp on the floor.

“After each use, the floor and seat of this toilet are automatically washed and disinfected,” read the sign inside. Another sign advised a 15-minute limit. I discovered the motion-activated stream of water to wash my hands, but not a way to flush. I believe that, after leaving, the entire toilet folded up to drain as the cabin was sanitized. Quite a good experience!

Paid toilets are often the norm in bus and train stations, to keep the riffraff from staying out of the cold and to help pay for attendants to keep the washrooms clean.

I used to resent having to pay, but Portugal has changed my mind. The bus station washrooms I´ve encountered cost 50 cents, but they´re super clean, and well supplied with toilet paper, soap and powerful hand dryers. The Sete Rios bus station washroom in Lisbon always has an attendant on duty, busily cleaning. Now, I happily deposit my 50-cent coin to let me through the turnstile.

On a Spanish bus from Santiago de Compostela (Spain) to Aveiro (Portugal), the driver gave me and some other female passengers a dressing down about the toilet, which cost one euro to use. As people came and went, I and other women sitting near the toilet held the door open for the next person, which meant they didn´t have to pay. At a stop midway along the route, the bus driver stomped up the aisle and gave us a rapid-fire Spanish lecture, gesticulating at the washroom door, which I took to mean “Thou SHALT pay a euro to pee.”

At a Costa Rican bus station, the toilets were free, but you had to pay the attendant a small amount to get toilet paper. I handed my coins to the older lady. She smiled and handed me two squares of thin toilet paper. Good thing I always pack more in my purse.

Squat, portable, disposable: many types of toilets

To flush this typical ceramic squat toilet in rural Thailand, you use the blue bowl to scoop water from the cement tank into the toilet until it flushes.

There are oh-so-many types of toilets, but none provokes as much trepidation amongst western travellers as squat toilets.

Common in Asia and Africa, squat toilets usually consist of a porcelain toilet bowl at ground level, with grid marks on the sides indicating where to place your feet. To flush, city toilets usually have levers or buttons. In rural areas, there´s a big tub or tank of water with a small plastic bowl that you use to wash your hands and then scoop water into the toilet bowl until it flushes.

Apart from my balance challenge, my big question about squat toilets was, which way to do I face? The wall? Or with my back to the wall? A handy Wiki page answered that question: face the rounded end that will catch any errant spray.

Some porta-potties are cleaner than permanent washrooms in buildings. This one in Ontario had a grey hand-washing station (on the left).

After my initial encounters with squat toilets, I didn´t find them so bad. Give me a clean squat any day over a filthy western sit-on toilet. Or a trough…

During a long bus trip in Malaysia, we stopped for a bathroom break. I lined up with the ladies and chatted with the woman in front of me. When she got to the head of the line, she kindly stood aside and let me go into the next available stall.

“How nice,” I thought. I entered the stall, locked the door, then turned around and stood in bewilderment.

A sleek street urinal in London (left) was far more enticing than the smelly-but-free “Urinol” (centre and right) in Lisbon.

The stall was in the corner of the room, with no toilet of any description, just two narrow troughs along the floor on the two outside walls. How on earth was a woman to use these facilities? Whether I faced the wall or faced the door, I couldn´t get my parts aligned with the trough. Not even in the corner.

Finally, I left the stall and joined the line again. When I got to the head of the line again, I went into another stall with a most-welcome squat toilet. I have never solved that trough mystery.

Near the São Jorge Castle in Lisbon is a public urinal, consisting of a simple, painted-metal screen hiding a cement booth over a hole in the ground. But there´s no hiding that stench! Desperate men with sinus congestion might use it… 

Composting toilets are making appearances in some Canadian campgrounds, but they´ve been in New Zealand campgrounds, such as this one in Whangaruru, for far longer. The black pipes exhaust gases from the composting materials.  

Encountering a wide variety of toilets in the great outdoors makes campers more adaptable, a trait that helps when traveling abroad.

In Ontario provincial park campgrounds, the “comfort stations” have regular flush toilets. Further into the woods, you get outhouses – those small wooden stalls with raised plastic toilet seats atop a long drop to a hole. Even when they´re squeaky clean, they can be odiferous. And far from civilization, you find thunderboxes – literally a wooden box with a hole on top over a big pit. No walls, but a hinged lid keeps it somewhat dry. BYOTP. But the views are tremendous over pine trees and sparkling lakes!

When I climbed Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, one of my porters carried my portable toilet all the way, emptying it into campground outhouses that were sometimes perched on cliff edges. (Glad I didn´t have to use those!) My washroom consisted of a tall tent of telephone booth dimensions; inside was a five-gallon pail with a plastic toilet seat attached. Actually, quite comfortable! I felt like royalty on that trip.

Elsewhere in Tanzania, I squatted over a six-inch-diameter hole in a cement floor – that was it; just the hole. But it was cleaner than other ceramic squat toilets I encountered there. One had a water tank high on the wall with a pull chain that clearly wasn’t doing its flushing duty since there were floaties in the clogged drain. But honestly, that can happen anywhere.

Stainless steel, plastic or disposable – so many different types and materials for toilets.

When we travelled in our camper van we named Vandalf, we had a cassette toilet – a comfortable toilet seat over a well-sealed plastic container. We used it mostly at night and emptied it into washrooms, campgrounds and porta-potties we encountered.

Hiking in remote areas with no facilities requires special knowledge about waste disposal so you don´t pollute the environment. When we hiked in Bugaboo Provincial Park, in British Columbia, Canada, we carried the Restop 2 Disposable Toilet-To-Go in a handy pouch. Inside was a spill-proof bag for liquids and solids, toilet paper and one antimicrobial wipe. We didn´t have to use it, but our daughter Rachel said they work well.

The book How to Shit in the Woods by Kathleen Meyer gives excellent advice that works not just for camping but also for travel in general. Read it, especially before traveling to less-developed countries.

Flushing mechanisms and other mysteries

Press the foot pedal (left), toggle the lever on the pipe (centre), and press down on the switch (right).

Washrooms feature a wide range of equipment, some of it quite mysterious.

Toilets can be made of porcelain, plastic, wood or stainless steel. Seats can be round, oval or split in front. Many Portuguese washrooms have no separate seat at all – you sit on the cold porcelain edges. It put me off at first, but then I realized that these types are probably cleaner, since there are no nooks and crannies around a seat to harbour dirt or other nefarious odour-makers.

Tanks can be right behind the toilet bowl, hidden behind the wall, or high up near the ceiling. Light switches can be outside the washroom or inside or nonexistent, with lights on motion-sensing timers. Some timers are set far too short, leaving you sitting in pitch black. Waving your arms usually triggers the light again, but several times, I´ve had to turn on my cell phone flashlight.

Press down on the lever (left), put your finger in the hole by the toilet paper and press down (centre), and pull on the chain (right).

Toilet paper dispensers can be frustrating, especially when you discover, mid-stream, that it´s empty and you´ve forgotten to bring any yourself. Drip dry. Sometimes, a new TP roll is so tight you can´t turn it. You tear off tiny little strips that couldn´t wipe a mouse. That´s when I break out my personal stash.

But the biggest mystery is the flushing mechanism – what and where it´s located. I´ve used lever handles on the front or side of the tank; but do you press down or up or push? Some have buttons that you push, but with others, you twist – but do you twist left or right? Some have foot pedals on the floor – at the side of the toilet or under the tank. If the toilet tank is high up, there´s usually a chain you yank down.

What a wonderful flusher! In a Portuguese restaurant, this high-tech beauty flushes while spinning the seat under the small white bar to automatically wash, disinfect and dry it.

Many larger washrooms, in airports or malls, have auto flushers that are supposed to start when you stand up; but often, they exuberantly flush before you’re finished, giving you a wet butt for a souvenir.  

The first time I´d seen double buttons, for a full or partial flush, was in New Zealand in 2002, but they´re quite common now.  

The closely related bidet

In Bologna, Italy, I cooled my hot, puffy feet in the bidet after a long day of sampling yummy food.  

Bidets – intended to clean the backside after toilet use – are more common in Europe than North America. We have one in our Portuguese apartment. However, I use it for other purposes: to clean our shoes (especially when muddy or we´ve stepped in doggy doo), and to cool off my hot, puffy feet at the end of a hot, tiring day of sight-seeing. I sit sideways on the toilet, put my feet in the bidet and run cold water over them.

Midori sat in the bidet, waiting patiently for us to turn the water on for him. He preferred this “fountain” over his water bowl.

When we cat-sat in Verona, Italy, Midori also used the bidet for other purposes: a drinking fountain! I personally wouldn´t go that far, but it is the same water that comes from the tap…  

A toilet museum!

A Canadian chamber pot from the mid-19^th-century was highlighted amongst the hundreds of hygienic vessels in the Museo del Orinal, in Ciudad Rodrigo in northwest Spain.

I love off-beat museums, so couldn´t resist the Museo del Orinal (Urinal Museum), dedicated to “this hygienic utensil for domestic use.” The 1,350 pieces from 29 countries included chamber pots, toilets, medical urinals, potty chairs for adults and children, and more.

The oldest pot hailed from the 1200s. A deep-blue ceramic beauty was from Canada. Decorated with a horseman slaying a dragon, it had gold-plated trim and an apple knob on the lid. Ironically, the museum´s washroom was difficult to find. Perhaps they didn´t want visitors to mix it up with the exhibits.

A painting (left) in the Museo del Orinal illustrated the medieval practice of emptying chamber pots out an upper window into the street below, often upon unsuspecting pedestrians. Bill made jokes while inspecting a row of potty chairs. Two Spanish chamber pots (lower right) were from the 1500s.

The “Caca-Culo” chamber pot in the Museo del Orinal is a Spanish joke written in the familiar script of Coca Cola. “Caca” means poop and “culo” means ass.

The Royal Ontario Museum displayed an English white earthenware chamber pot with a lid and a toilet with pretty blue decorations labelled as a “waterfall closet.”

An exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, described how the western toilet bowl had evolved in the late 1800s. “Pulling a chain released water from a ceramic cistern high on the wall to flush out the bowl. With the invention of transfer printing on ceramics, sanitary appliances became things of beauty.”

Some palaces, castles, and fortified towers we´ve visited actually talk about personal hygiene – mostly for men but sometimes women too. How did ladies manage with all those voluminous layers of skirts and petticoats?

A Spanish duke lifted the wooden lid to use this ceramic toilet that could be flushed by pulling on the chain to release water from the tank high on the wall (top left).

In the National Palace in Sintra, Portugal, the toilet room was described as “once hidden from view by draperies” with “feigned marbled walls, a ceramic latrine and bidet, set into wooden furniture with hinged lids.” The ceramic pot slipped into a wooden cabinet with a hole for a seat, just like in the Spanish duke´s fancy home.

I much prefer dry toilet paper over the sponge used by the Romans when they lived in Malta.

At St. Paul´s Catacombs in Malta, the washrooms featured fascinating info panels about how the Romans had cleaned themselves. No toilet paper. Instead, they used a communal sea sponge on a stick that they rinsed and left for the next person. Then they washed their hands in the same water channel they´d used to rinse the sponge!

The Romans also combined their toilets and laundries. Those in charge of laundering clothes used urine as a cleaning agent. Imagine peeing on your clothes to clean them!

In later times, Maltese knights stationed on the roof of the Red Tower, watching for pirates, could relieve themselves in this niche urinal (right of the door).

On the way into the University of Coimbra (Portugal)´s splendid baroque Joanina Library, we passed through old rooms below. I sat on one of the Academic Prison toilets.

From the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), a bidet made of white porcelain with cobalt blue decoration was displayed in the Oriente Museum in Lisbon.

Memorable restrooms 

I feel confident that, even though this photo (left) shows me using the toilet, the over-the-top tilework, lights and mirrored ceiling prevent any privacy indiscretions.

The lobby washroom at The Ivens hotel in Lisbon stopped me dead in my tracks. The over-the-top ceramic tiles and murals covering the floor, walls and ceiling combined with the streaky marble counter, lights and mirrors made me wonder if I´d wandered into a funhouse. Jungle birds with long tails perched on palm fronds while blousy pink, white and yellow flowers splashed hither and yon.  

I edged carefully across to a stall, shut the door, and then amused myself pointing my camera at the mirrored ceiling while sitting on the black throne. Fortunately, the large and small flush buttons were easy to find.

In the lobby washroom at The Ivens hotel in Lisbon, it´s difficult to discern the stalls.

Another that stood out for me was the Hundertwasser Toilets – listed as a tourist attraction in Kawakawa, New Zealand. Designed by architect and visual artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the washroom building was constructed around a living tree, features a green roof, and incorporates glass bottles, recycled bricks, sculptures and colourful ceramic tiles in undulating lines.

The Hundertwasser Toilets are constructed around a living tree.

Décor, like in the Hundertwasser Toilets, can make a washroom memorable.

Other washrooms are memorable for their stunning views – such as the sparkling Chicago lights from floor-to-ceiling windows in the ladies´ room on the 95^th floor of the John Hancock Building. I admired the panorama 10 years ago but, sadly, that washroom is closed now.

At the start of a hike to a Panama waterfall, the toilet cubicles in a little cabin didn´t have doors, but were private, nonetheless. As I sat, I admired the soothing view down a deep green valley between the mountains.

In La Torre del Oro Bar Andalú (aka the bull bar) in Madrid, I was taking a photo of the busy tilework around the Señoras and Señors just as a señor emerged. I apologized, but I think he thought I was creepy.

Many washrooms are memorable because of filth. And smells – good and bad. In Fiji, I had a surprise.

While preparing to go scuba diving, I needed the facilities before donning my wet suit. The divemaster pointed me across a parking lot to a dilapidated wooden outhouse.

“Oh no,” I thought. “This will be gross.”

But it wasn´t! Doubling as a shower stall, the plumbed outhouse was sparkly clean and beautifully smelling. A Coke bottle in the corner held fresh gardenias.

Mini-me!! This airport parent-friendly stall included an adorable mini-toilet for young children as well as a safety seat for a toddler while Mom goes in (relative) peace.

In Tanzania´s village of Longido, I needed a washroom. A friend of an acquaintance of a friend said I could use the facilities in the police station. Yes, please! A chance to see inside this tiny station. Careful what you wish for.

Past the reception desk, a grungy hallway led past barred-window cells with no prisoners, and then to a dark abode of gargantuan odours.

Oh my Lord.

I was so desperate I soldiered on. Breathing through my mouth, I readied my TP, pulled my pants down without letting the cuffs touch the ground or the toilet, and squatted. As usual, I tilted off-balance. I had to put out a hand to steady myself, but fortunately touched just one fingernail to the mottled, greenish-black wall covered by unfathomable splotches.

When I scooped water from the bucket to flush, floaties arose from the drain – floaties that I will not describe so readers may keep down their lunch. The state of the toilet probably encouraged quick prisoner rehabilitation.

When I returned to my friends, one asked how it had been.

“It was an adventure,” I responded with a laugh.

My 6 travel toilet tips:

This classic wooden outhouse sat in a sunny, flower-filled Canadian meadow.

By trial and error, over many decades of travel, here´s what I´ve learned:

1. Never pass up a clean toilet. Go before you leave a restaurant, museum, train station, airport, large grocery store.
2. Check for toilet paper before you sit down. Drip dry may be your punishment.
3. Always carry toilet paper and hand sanitizer. If your bag is big enough, wet wipes and a small plastic bag for garbage are also useful.
4. Always wipe the seat first. Exuberant flushes can leave the seat damp, never mind any other liquid sprinkles.
5. Carry small change.
6. Strengthen your thigh muscles before travelling. You´ll need them especially for squat toilets, but also to hover over less-than-clean toilet seats anywhere in the world. The yoga chair pose helps.

And yes, I do take my phone to the washroom – sometimes for photos or the flashlight, but mainly for rescues. At the Monastery in Alcobaça, I got stuck in a stall once when the lock broke. Fortunately, Bill had his phone with him that day (he doesn´t always), so I texted him to come rescue me. He couldn´t open the door either, so he found a security guard who brought a screwdriver to finally set me free. Ever since, I always take my phone. 

We´ve been exploring toilets around the world for decades. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.