As summer is well on its way and many of us are taking the opportunity to travel around, we look into toilet behaviour when away from home. From accidents on the way to in-flight etiquette: this is how people deal with peeing and pooing while travelling.
Travelling toilet behaviour is a subject on its own. Therefore, online bathroom warehouse brand QS Supplies held a survey asking more than 1,000 American and British travellers about how they manage toilet visits while travelling. The results are interesting, to say the least, but not especially healthy. Let’s start with a few numbers.
- 1 in 12 people have pooed themselves while travelling.
- 19% of travellers think passengers with smelly farts should be removed from a flight.
- 40% of travellers have peed in a bottle when they couldn’t find a toilet.
- 37% of travellers have gone without wiping due to a lack of supplies while travelling.
When we need to visit the bathroom, most of us like to do so while at home, especially when we’re planning on doing more than emptying our bladder. However, when we’re travelling, this isn’t feasible and we are thus obliged to visit a strange toilet. This can cause quite a bit of discomfort, especially when talking about public restrooms at an airport, at a station, in a plane, or at an amusement park.
According to QS Supplies’ survey, 35% of travellers avoid using unfamiliar toilets when travelling and hold it in instead. Most tend to do so because of cleanliness concerns (89%), bad smells (60%), or the lack of toilet paper and soap (53%). Porta-loos, petrol station toilets, and park toilets are considered to be the worst experiences.
Moreover, over one in five travellers hold it in for more than two hours before using an unfamiliar toilet, and people hold in a poo for 83 minutes while travelling. British respondents wait longer than their American counterparts, with a waiting time of 90 and 79 minutes, respectively. Asked about their actual poo, 38% of travellers indicate experiencing constipation, while 11% visit the toilet more frequently. 1 in 12 travellers also admitted to having pooed themselves while travelling, often a result of digestive troubles due to foreign food.
Toilet behaviour on planes is yet another story. 52% of travellers think people should never fart on a plane, while 19% think passengers with particularly smelly farts should be removed from a flight – Gen Z (23%) being the most likely to support this. 29% of travellers even went as far as stating they should be reimbursed for sitting next to someone who farts.
What does science say?
With all this in mind, it seems safe to assume that travellers generally tend to hold their bowels and bladder for longer than normal while on the road. However, scientists agree that doing this for too long can have a negative impact on your health. Holding your pee can increase your risk of getting a urinary tract infection, and it can strain your bladder muscles, thus weakening them. Holding your pee for a few hours every now and then might not be problematic, but if you’re travelling often, try to go to the toilet when the urge to pee occurs. Drinking less in order to pee as little as possible isn’t a good solution, especially when travelling, as this can quickly lead to dehydration.
The same goes for holding your poo. If you do this from time to time, there’s little chance it will become problematic, but postponing that toilet visit for too long, too often, will likely cause constipation. Incontinence, faecal impaction, and gastrointestinal perforation are some of the more severe possible consequences. As everybody has a different digestive rhythm, try to be attentive to any changes which might indicate issues, especially when persevering. Generally speaking, anyone who hasn’t been able to poo for a week or more should pay a visit to their general practitioner as soon as possible.
