There’s an app for finding public toilets while you’re on the road, because being stranded when you have to take a dump is so terrifying that scores of people choose not to leave the house at all instead. Don’t be one of those people. I suggest you download the app, and on top of that I offer my own experience for your sake in hopes to inspire you to venture to foreign lands and know that toilet options, though perhaps terrifying, are still surmountable:
1. Tijuana, Mexico
Part of my upbringing entailed living in a trailer two miles north of the Tijuana border. My mother had a job making bombs for the American military, which was not at all as profitable as you might think, so as a kid I spent a lot of time across the border pursuing a career as an under-aged drinker. The drive back into California could entail an hours-long wait at the border—and this after consuming copious cervezas along with mystery-meat street tacos. One time I had to exit my vehicle, run into the border market and beg the locals to direct me to a toilet. They gamely pointed me to a tarp-covered corner blocked by a hanging drop cloth. Behind that was a hobo passed out in his own piss, and behind him was a hole in the ground, next to which was a cinder block supporting a roll of toilet paper. I felt fortunate there was toilet paper. I made it back to my car before the people behind me in line honked for the fourth time.
2. Milan, Italy
Here there’s not so much a deficit in toilet availability as there is a severe protection of access to said toilets. To avail yourself to a lavatory that meets civil standards, you have to pretty much purchase something to eat or drink at a bearable place. If you’re a backpacking urchin like I was, you’re relegated to the public toilets at the train station, which still cost a Euro to use. You pay the Euro to a craggy, babushka-wearing woman who waves you toward a stall, but that stall has a real door that extends ceiling to floor. You could spend the night in there if you want. Well worth the price.