I’ve seen some tiktoks of American tourists around Europe, and their number one complaint is how little water there is in daily life.
I guess they are used to US restaurants offering free tap water with a meal. And there are public drinking fountains almost everywhere.
It’s common advice here to drink 2L of water every day. They also say if your pee is yellow, then you are dehydrated. Athletic people drink much more than 2L, although I’m sure some people drink zero (maybe only drinking soda or beer).
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I do anywhere between 1.5-3l per day, but not like a rule or anything, I just drink when I’m thirsty.
Although apparently (and this is just anecdotal) I’m in the minority here. Both IRL acquaintances and in r/Romania threads, people seemingly just… barely drink water I guess. My mother in law says she drinks around 0.5l a day. And a friend told me he only drinks coffee, juice and beer, which is *insane*.
> I’ve seen some tiktoks of American tourists around Europe, and their number one complaint is how little water there is in daily life.
> I guess they are used to US restaurants offering free tap water with a meal. And there are public drinking fountains almost everywhere.
Well yeah, most of your water intake is at home or at work. Since they are tourists, those options aren’t available, plus they’re doing a lot more walking than usual (Americans ba-dum-tss), so they’re thirstier.
Although I never understood why you’d want to keep your healthy habits on vacation. For me, that implies treating yourself. I never drank as much beer in my life as I did in the week I visited Belgium this year.
Free tap water in restaurants is the norm here as well. There’s probably a lack of drinking fountains in public spaces though.
The general advice is similar. Around 2L every day and if your pee is dark yellow, it’s probably a sign you’re dehydrated.
I’ve been pretty bad for drinking water except when I’m at my desk in work with nothing else to do but would drink a lot of tea and I also eat a lot of fruit & veg. I have been drinking around 3L of just water for the past few months because of a medication I’m taking & it has made a difference to my skin tbf.
Edit: you can drink too much water though. My doctor told me to cool it with the fluid intake in at one point after I started drinking more water because it was showing on my blood tests that I was really low in something (urea maybe) & it was connected to over hydration.
Well, that depends. If you only count tap water: around 1-2 liter. Including other fluids like tea and coffee I’d be near 3 liters a day.
When I am at work, I have a 1L bottle of tap water on the desk. I drink minimum 2 of them in a work day (now in the summer even more). Then at home I drink water almost everytime I step in the kitchen or bathroom. So I would say around 3L a day.
We have [over 1200 fountains](https://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/fountain-city-zurich) with free drinkable water spread throughout the city, so access to drinking water isn’t a problem at all. I don’t know about tap water in restaurants nowadays as I usually order sparkling water which isn’t for free. But when I was younger I remember that most places offered tap water for free when asking for it.
Personally I drink around 2.5 – 3.5L of water per day, depending if I do sports or not. Other beverages not included.
I have no idea exactly how much water I drink in a day, but I do try to drink as much as possible, especially now in summer when it has been very hot. I also drink quite a lot of coffee, which is rather dehydrating, so because of that I need to drink more water as well to compensate. I generally keep a water bottle with me in my backpack, which I can just refill throughout the day at the office. And when I go hiking, I make sure to pack some bigger bottles of water as well – especially when it’s hot.
I do think though that there definitely ought to be more public places where you could refill water bottles with drinking water for free. Here, those are mostly found at popular hiking areas and national parks, very rarely in cities. And refilling at public bathrooms is of course not so nice. We do have a lot of water sold in stores – both still water and carbonated water – but it is a bit expensive considering it’s just water. Because of that, I would definitely recommend tourists to fill up their own water bottles at the hotel before going out for the day.
Just to clarify – if the pee is dark yellow, you should drink more water. if it is lighter yellow, you are fine. if the pee is clear, you are drinking too much water.
The official health advice in the UK is ‘[*6 to 8 cups or glasses of fluid a day. Water, lower-fat milk and sugar-free drinks, including tea and coffee, all count*](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-guidelines-and-food-labels/water-drinks-nutrition/)’ which should be ‘*enough during the day so their pee is a clear pale yellow colour*’.
It is not correct to say “if your pee is yellow, then you are dehydrated” and I suspect you are misinterpreting advice that your pee should be clear. Clear in this context means ‘not cloudy’ rather than ‘not coloured’. If your pee is not coloured then you are dangerously overhydrated, which carries its own health risks.
A lot of people in the UK drink little or no water, and get their hydration from other drinks or from food (for example fruit and vegetables are around 80% water).
0, in the event of a choosing a drink I, obviously, pick a tea or coffee or something. There is no fun drinking plain boring water. Also you get a lot of it with soups anyway.
Maybe whe I’m outside and it is very hot, I’d buy a bottle of plain water, but such events are super rare.
And yeah, obviously drink water when doing sports.
Maybe 1-1.5L on a regular day and 3L if it’s hot.
But also there’s indeed no “drinking fountains” but everyone just fills up their water bottles in bathrooms if you’re out and about and increasing number of places like parks and city squares have a tap for filling up your bottle.
By the way: I’m under the impression that the reason some people believe pee needs to be clear is a study funded by an American sports drink company, who just stated it as a “goal”, probably to make people drink as much of their product as possible. They managed to normalize this state as being “well hydrated”.
In some languages, the term is “hydration balance”, hinting you can go overboard.
Healthcare professionals will tell you that completely clear wee is a sign your body is trying to get rid of excess, and in much rarer cases potentially about a health problem.
To the question: I have no idea how much I drink. I take a couple of sips of water when I feel like it, and about 500 ml per hour when cycling in hot weather.
2-3L of purely water, plus another 2Lish of other drinks (coffee, juice, Diet Coke).
what? restaurants in Europe offer free tap water as well, just don’t advertise it, lol. there are public fountains everywhere
Usually, about 2l, currently about 4l because a baby is sucking the life out of me
I personally don’t drink water, but only coca-cola and simmilar drinks.
But on average, people do drink a lot water here.
Currently because of the heatwave I drink loads. Like I put 5L of water in the fridge yesterday and got through it all, plus a bottle of coke and a coffee.
I’ll drink at least 2L a day normally.
I drink around 2-3l water every day, depending on exercise, work, heat etc.
The usual advice here is 2l, like other already mentioned. In Vienna at least, there are a ton of drinking fountains throughout the city, but in other places they are less common. You can drink from any tap (as long as a sign doesn’t say so), so if you want to refill your water bottle, you can just do it everywhere.
I think what most (US american) tourists don’t get is, that we usually don’t walk around with big chugs of water. One may carry a small (500ml up to 1l) bottle in their bag, but that’s it. Because you can refill everywhere you go, noone needs to carry 2l water. (I saw a lot of those videos too, and almost everytime they show a huge 3-4l water bottle and are confused why noone carries these things here). If you go hiking in the mountains, you carry of course as much as you need, but even there you usually can refill somewhere, and even if it’s only a spring or river.
In terms of just tap water I drink 1 to 1.5L each day when at work (or even 3L during hot days).
During the weekends I barely drink any water but I substitute that with tea and iced tea.
Usually 2-3 litres, one of which is brewed, unsweatened tea. If I’m doing sports about 1l more.
One litre during work, probably another litre at home, more if I’m out doing activities. All tap.
Drinking fountains aren’t really a thing and only started emerging in the last few years. But restaurants, pubs and general gastro establishments etc are by law required to give people tap water for free. Not sure if this is limited to a typical 0,3 glass. But you could enter any bar and ask for a glass of tap water, and they have to give it to you for free.
I think public medical opinion on minimum water intake has changed, today it’s more like “drink when you’re thirsty, don’t force it”.
I have a 750ml water bottle that I finish in a working day at my desk, and in the evening I’ll have a couple of glasses as well. On top of that, I drink about 4 or 5 mugs of tea a day. I think I drink enough water, because I’m not thirsty!
I drink a lot of watter easily exceeding 2l. I drink either heavy mineralized watter, sparcling watter, water with lemon and/or mint .. when I work, I have a jug or watter with seasonal fruits next to me all the time. Now it is strawberries and bluberries and mint 🙂
I usually dont drink that much water, but i drink a lot of tea
Where I live there are public drinking fountains and restaurants offer a carafe of tap water.
I drink about a litre of water a day, sometimes more, as well as about a litre of tea.
The US got it right in this one. Water, at least tap, should be offered at the table once you sit to eat.
I know I should drink a lot more water during the day. I have to force myself to do it.
How much do I drink in a day? With breakfast 200 to 400 ml milk, 200-600ml of water between breakfast and lunch, 330 cola with lunch, another 200-600ml between lunch and dinner and 400ml with dinner. So anywhere between 1.33L and 2.33L in a day.
Just ask for tap water in restaurants. If they say no, I usually go elsewhere. But it’s really rare that they outright refuse in my experience.
I just drink if I’m thirsty. :/ Sometimes that’s 0.5 L a day, sometimes it’s 2.5 L a day. Plus you also get a lot of water from the food you eat. And yellow urine is normal. It’s only a problem if it’s dark yellow or brown. Aaand we also have free tap water in restaurants here.
I drink water when I’m thirsty, don’t really measure how much. Maybe 1-2 l on a normal day, and more if it’s very hot and/or I’m doing something physical. I usually also have 2-4 cups of coffee a day and a beer maybe every second night (mostly non alcoholic ones). Sometimes tea. I don’t usually drink sodas or juices.
I try to avoid drinking in the evening though, I don’t want to get up at night to go to the bathroom.
The official recommandation in France is between 1 to 1.5 L https://www.ameli.fr/seine-saint-denis/assure/sante/themes/alimentation-adulte-types-aliments/eau
This is what I drink I think. I drink mostly during meals (always a jug of water on the table), plus a few glasses around the day, plus sometimes water before going to bed or during the night.
Every restaurant offers free tap water, unless you’re a tourist, they may try to sell you bottled water first and wait for you to ask tap water.
If I’m outside walking or exploring I always bring a bottle with me, it’s not easy to find fountains in France. I think that’s what confusing tourists: of course when you spend your day outside, walking under the sun, you need more water than if you stay at the office working, but you need to anticipate that.
A couple litres a day maybe? I don’t count, I drink a lot of water and carry a bottle with me pretty much everywhere I go but I’m not going to die or complain if I don’t have water for a day, I can easily wait a couple hours until I sit down in a restaurant to get (also free here) tap water.
More than a litre for sure, maybe even more than two.
Which are the backwards countries that doesn’t give you tap waters in restaurants ?
Usually I’m at 2,5-3L per day because I feel myself too dry
3L+ generally.
1,5L at work.
Fill up my bottle again once I come back from work(tap water filter) and most times I’ll fill it up again before the night is over.
That is wit 30-45 minutes of cardio generally.
On an average non-active day, around 2 litres. On active, more.
I don’t count it but during work 1 litre probably. When it’s hot like right now all the damn time, more than 2 for sure
Interesting, but I have seen stereotypes that Americans usually do not drink water because you usually sodas.
Anyway, I drink 1.5l + every day and in Latvia it’s normal to ask for a tap water everywhere.