While travelling abroad, you'll likely notice differences in everything from food to fashion to weather and yes, even washrooms.
Though you may be used to using a public washroom for free at the mall or in a local coffee shop, in many countries across Europe and Asia you must pay a small fee to use the washroom. And what you're paying for changes in different countries too.
In Taiwan, payments are made for toilet paper while in India, coins are collected to operate public washrooms in areas with poor sanitation. In some countries you can even get a refund after paying a public toilet deposit.
In the infographic below, by bathroom product supplier Sloan, we learn a little bit more about toilet etiquette around the world, including tips for travellers who may stumble across some extreme situations.
Click for full size.
Also on HuffPost
Toilets around the world
Fountain of Toilets, Foshan, China(01 of14)
Made from 10,000 toilets, sinks and urinals, this fantastic flushing fountain graces Shiwan Park in Foshan, China, the world’s ceramic capital. The installation, which is 100m long and 5m high, is the handy work of Chinese artist Shu Yong, who used factory seconds and pre-loved pans to create his masterpiece. (credit:© Al Sol / 500px)
Sony Center, Berlin, Germany(02 of14)
Everything is uber modern in the Helmut Jahn–designed Sony Center in Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz, including the men’s room. The centre, completed in 2000, occupies a historic spot that was flattened during WWII, and became a no-man’s land when the Berlin Wall was built across it during the Cold War. (credit:© Werner Monatsspruch / 500pxif)
Outhouse, British Columbia, Canada(03 of14)
Despite its ultra remote location on the shoreline of Haida Gwaii (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands) in British Columbia, Canada, this impressive outhouse features an automatic flush, powered by the moon, which washes all waste away twice a day. (credit:© Chris Kolaczan / 500px)
Latrine, Enontekiö, Finland(04 of14)
This Arctic outhouse offers a pew with a view of Salmivaara Fell. It serves a wilderness hut at the west end of Lake Saarijärvi, on the Nordkalottleden Trail that wends through Enontekiö in Finnish Lapland. The trail, an epic 800km odyssey linking Finland, Norway and Sweden, is Europe’s most northerly hike. (credit:© Janne Mankinen / 500px)
Public lavatories, Matakana, New Zealand(05 of14)
Locals in Matakana waited seven years and spent a pretty penny (NZ$400,000) to come face-to-face with their pouting public toilets, which provoked plaudits and protestation. Matakana lad Steffan de Haan’s design is highly symbolic, from the facade to the ship-shape cubicles, a nod to the local boat-building industry. (credit:© Holger Väth / 500px)
His ‘n’ Hers, Jericoacoara Beach, Brazil(06 of14)
Since 'The Washington Post' blabbed about Jericoacoara being one of the world’s best beaches, this erstwhile hidden gem on Brazil’s east coast has become a hotspot for travellers questing for blue lagoons, sun-blasted sand, tranquil seas and immense dunes. They’ve even had to build these his-and-hers palm-frond beach bogs. (credit:© Thomas Heinze / 500px)
Prototype Space Toilet(07 of14)
No, Earthling, this isn’t an alien probing machine – it’s a space toilet. Performing basic human functions in zero gravity is complicated. A suction system helps things travel in the desirable direction. Get it wrong, and you’ll leave the ultimate floater – but at least, in space, no one can hear you scream. (credit:Adam Jamieson / Getty Images ©)
Penguin privy, Golden Bay, New Zealand(08 of14)
Colonies of little blue penguins have set up camp all around Golden Bay at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, where the beaches are protected from the Pacific Ocean’s tempestuous mood swings by the curve of Farewell Spit. Humans are apparently allowed to use these Pohara village toilets too. (credit:© Noelle Bennett / 500px)
‘Comfort toilets’, Chott el Djerid, Tunisia(09 of14)
Chott el Djerid, a large salt lake in southern Tunisia, was used as the setting for Luke Skywalker’s boyhood home in the original Star Wars film. The Lars’ subterranean homestead may have been destroyed, but the Galactic Empire failed to extinguish the new hope represented by these roadside ‘comfort’ toilets. (credit:© Lucio Valmaggia / 500px)
Basham Beach Conservation Park, South Australia(10 of14)
You can virtually see the sea from this eco-friendly unisex dunny in Basham Beach Conservation Park near Port Elliott on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. If the waves were visible, you might even spot from here one of the migrating southern right whales that regularly cruise this coast during the winter. (credit:© Trevor Holder / 500px)
Eco-toilet, Encounter Bay, Australia(11 of14)
Tactfully painted to blend in with its bushland surrounds on the foreshore of wild Waitpinga Beach in Encounter Bay, South Australia, this eco-toilet serves a salty bunch of beach bums, who seek out the solitude, surf breaks and fishing spots offered by the Fleurieu Peninsula coastline. (credit:© Trevor Holder / 500px)
Red Woods Toilets, Rotorua, New Zealand(12 of14)
Thanks to the geothermal activity around Rotorua in New Zealand, the ‘Sulphur City’ has a perpetual eggy odour; paradoxically, the public toilets in the Redwoods Forest are sweet as. The shrouds, designed by Maori artist Kereama Taepa, each depict a native North Island bird, which is either extinct or endangered. (credit:© Fran(E)K S / 500px)
Lobster loos, Wellington, New Zealand(13 of14)
Spend a penny? Wellington spent NZ$375,000 on architect Bret Thurston’s boggly-eyed design for the public lavatories on the city’s windswept waterfront. It is hoped that the two tentacles, armoured in orange steel, will attract tourists to Wellington. (credit:Linda Mckie / Getty Images ©)
Log outhouse, Chena Hot Springs Resort, Alaska, USA(14 of14)
If Santa has an outhouse, it surely resembles this log bog on the banks of a creek meandering through Chena Hot Springs Resort in Fairbanks, Alaska – though you’ll have to be an employee to enjoy it. The resort also boasts an Ice Museum, featuring frozen carvings, including a life-size effigy of jousting knights and a depiction of a (non-functioning) ice toilet. (credit:Sunny Awazuhara- Reed / Design Pics / Getty Images ©)