Asklemmy

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

I live in the USA, and we don't have to boil tap water in my city, but after having lived for a spell in a place where tap water is boiled first, I boil mine because I like the way it tastes--it's sweeter. Maybe boiling it helps get rid of the chlorine taste that city water has? I don't know. But I do prefer it.

German: Yes. Most of the water I consume comes straight from the tap

In Argentina, generally you can drink straight from the tap.

In Malaysia, the water is advertised as safe to drink. Large majority however, either boils it or uses their own water filters.

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

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

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!

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

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.

One thing to consider: While tab water in most of the developed world is potable,any water safety guarantees usually end where the house water pipes begin. Depending on the state of the piping, tap water might not be safe, even if the water supplyer says it's safe.

You can get a water test (especially bacteria is important) for relatively cheap. Last time I did such a test it was ~€60. It's not wrong to do one.

Also, the definition of potable water is that the water is potable after the tap has been running for 10(!) minutes.

Bacteria contaminated pipes are pretty common and if the water has been sitting in these biofilm-covered pipes over night or even longer, the water can become pretty harmful. Especially after you get home from a vacation, letting the water run for a decent amount of time might be a good thing.

Also: the worst thing that can happen to your water pipe system are blind pipes, so pipes that are connected only on one end. That could be e.g. left-over plumbing after remodeling or pipes that lead to unused taps. If at all possible, these ahould be removed or flushed at best daily.

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

German Here, we have really good Tapwater here.

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

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.

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).

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

Canadian in a major city - yes, safe to drink right from the tap.

However, many remote communities here do not have access to safe drinking water.

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

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.

One thing about tap water in the USA is that, while you can drink it, water taste varies a lot.

For instance, in the Southwest USA, it is very common for bottled water to be sold in gallons. There are even small stores whose main purpose is to filter tap water to remove minerals.

You also have the use of non-potable "grey" water that is treated sewage water that gets used for irrigation. You'll usually see signs to not drink that water.

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.

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.

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

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