What Are Your Tips and Tricks for "Don't Drink The Water" Countries?
 

Aside from sticking to the bottled stuff, do you have any particular approaches to eating and drinking in countries where sanitation and water quality are dubious? Personally, I bring along Ciproflaxacin and take it pre-emptively, and I go vegetarian even though I am a meat eater at home.

I don't drink tap water anywhere as I understand you can get an upset stomach even if it's perfectly clean due to different mineral compositions

I then have two categories of 'don't drink the water' countries where I amend my behavior

a) e.g Thailand Brazil, will brush teeth with tap water, will eat salad (likely washed with tap water), will take ice cubes likely made of tap water
b) e.g. India, Kenya, brush teeth with bottled water, no salad or ice cubes

I have gotten sick from bottled water was either poorly filtered or has been sitting out in the sun for too long. A few times this was the free water you get at a hotel that's part of a well-known international chain, so in countries where tap water is not an option, I drink bottled only from (local) brands that I know.

If tap water is a clean option and tastes well, I'll drink it.

I'm not sure taking antibiotic proactively is the best idea as you can contribute to antibiotic-resistant bacteria and also become sensitive to it (as I did with an antibiotic related to Cipro after taking it for a long-running recurring infection). Avoiding meat won't preclude food-borne illness as fruits and veggies are just as often the culprits, whether due to contaminated wash water for uncooked items or cross-contamination post-cooking, for cooked stuff.

I mainly rely on bottled water but also have one of those portable water-boilers to use if I run out of bottled. Though nowadays luckily it's easy to find good bottled water even in more remote places. If the tap water is drinkable though I just use that unless it tastes bad.

Do not drink water or brush teeth in Peru - bottled water only. I also carry a Life Straw.

My first tip is to determine for yourself whether the water is safe to drink or not, not rely on others to tell you whether it is or not.

When living on a Greek island, I was aware that Tour company reps routinely advised the tourists not to drink the water. Given that all the water on the island was perfectly safe to drink, I wondered why, a rep that had been on the island for all of 1 or 2 weeks at the beginning of a season, suddenly became an expert on the local water. Obviously they weren't, they were just following 'the script' which included advising tourists to stick to bottled water.

Turns out, this is part of tour companies 'cover your butt' strategy. If they advise you to drink bottled water and you drink tap water, you can't complain to them about something afterwards. Tourists regularly drink too much alcohol, then blame any ensuing illness on 'bad water', apparently. Can't do that if you claim to have only drank bottled water as directed.

While I do agree there are places where the water is not safe to drink out of the tap (several places in the USA come to mind), not everywhere someone tells you to drink bottled water is actually a problem, so my first question is, 'who is saying to drink bottled water'.

I do agree that some people are more susceptible to any change in the water they drink (or the food they eat) than other people. That you can only determine by trial and error. One person may have no difficulty eating and drinking in X while another person gets sick on day 1. You can't put everything down to, 'you should only drink bottled water.'

You really should brush your teeth, dude. :)

Activated charcoal. Gastrosoothe. And prophylaxis by not. drinking. the. water.

Taking antibiotics prophylactically is, to be honest, a little immoral. Humanity overprescribes antibiotics leading to the growth of some terrible little bacteria.

Peel fruit.

I avoid raw vegetables and fruits without peels. Meats usually aren't the issue.

I don't eat meat, but I would agree. Meats have the advantage of being almost always cooked.

I'm one of the lucky ones who seems resistant to the stomach bugs and have drank water in many places the CDC says I shouldn't have. The one time I had a case of the traveller trots was in rural Armenia that may have been more attributable to heavy alcohol imbibing the previous evening than the water. It passed (pun intended) in about an hour. I've wouldn't take antibiotics in advance because they can kill the bacteria in the gut which leads to diarrhea which is what you are trying to prevent in the first place.

Yes. For the love of humanity, please don't diminish the effectiveness of antiboitics we have. If not for humanity, don't make my work harder.

In Peru, only brush your teeth with bottled water!