3 weeks ago
10
November 18, 2025 — 5:00am
Forgive the toilet talk.
Lonely Planet’s latest publication has landed on my desk, along with two rolls of toilet paper from Who Gives a Crap.
The book is a new edition of Toilets of the World by Patrick Kinsella, who knows his loos, documenting 100 dunnies, potties, water closets and lavatories (the book includes a glossary of toilet terms) from Norway to Bolivia via Nepal.
The world’s most extreme toilet, according to Kinsella, is an outhouse in the Altai Mountains of Siberia that hangs over a cliff at 2600 metres.
The most expensive is a £4.8 million ($9.7 million), 18-carat gold toilet at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. You can’t sit on it now, because it was stolen (a new version is about to go up for auction in New York).
You can sit on the can (an American word for it) at 5364 metres above sea level at the Everest Base Camp. Or on a latrine at the lowest place on earth, Amman Beach on the Dead Sea.
It seems there is such a thing as loo tourism, as there is cemetery tourism and dark tourism. Devotees travel the world to sit on and take photos of quirky toilets. We can call it loorism, perhaps?
The book would be an excellent gift for someone with an interest in sanitation or funky design, as some toilets really put the sass into cistern, such as the Rainbow Restroom in Lisbon, where rolls of toilet paper in bright colours are stacked high like the colour spectrum.
Flipping through all the images of loos in remote places like the desert of Namibia or the salt plains of Southern Tunisia, I realise there’s not a single convenience in the book I’ve actually visited.
Loos, I’ve known a few, but obviously too few to mention.
The most “interesting” toilet I’d ever experienced while travelling was on the local train between Sibiu and Sighisoara in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. I still have nightmares about it.
Usually my requirements are more practical than aesthetic. When I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go, and I don’t really care if there’s a view of Torres del Paine in Chile or that the toilet bowl is antique Royal Doulton, as it is in Saltram House in Plymouth.
The question of where I might find the next loo occupies far too many of my thoughts when I’m travelling, especially on a group tour when there might be hours between stops.
Maybe it’s a female thing more than a male thing. I notice that women get more anxious about how long there’ll be between toilet stops. I’m envious of how much easier it is for men to simply go behind the bushes.
They can also hover at a safe distance from one of those traditional squat toilets that are the only option in many places. I know it’s not ethical, but I’ve learnt to quickly use a disabled toilet (which often have a Western-style bowl) when a filthy squat is the only other option – while checking there are no mobility challenged people anywhere within cooee, of course.
Any loo is a good one when you really need it, although I go a long way to avoid the self-locking, self-cleaning ones you find in many urban centres. Once I didn’t make it out of a malfunctioning one in Paris before it started to clean. Never again.
It’s surprising how scarce public toilets are in many cities, leaving visitors to seek out museums, cafes and department stores. Hotels are my go-to if there’s one about. I walk in with the confidence of a guest, pretending I know where I’m going, and no one has ever stopped me.
In Australia we have the free National Public Toilet Map app that lists 19,000 public restrooms. Hooray for us, it’s a great idea, especially for people with disabilities or those who have to go frequently.
Toilet Finder, Squat or Not and Toilets Near You are among dozens of international apps (see also PooPee and iPoop) which will save you from disaster in an unfamiliar place.
On November 19 it’s World Toilet Day, which raises awareness of the fact that 3.5 billion people still live without adequate sanitation. Two in five people globally lack a decent toilet at all.
So, we’re rather spoiled if we expect a gleaming, white Western-style throne everywhere we travel.
I’m happy with an outdoor dunny. So long as I can find one quickly.
I like my conveniences to be convenient.
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