Drinking Water Concerns While Travelling Throughout the Caribbean

Between 30 and 70 percent of travellers suffer from traveller’s diarrhoea, making it “the most predictable travel-related illness. That sounds really scary, but the reality is not quite as terrifying. “What people always read about in the papers is the very dramatic cases, but with travel all over the world the majority of people are having mild or moderate infections. This mostly comes in the form of mild or moderate diarrhoea. This typically does not affect travel plans but isn’t completely incapacitating — it might require some over-the-counter medicine or a clinic visit, but not hospitalization.

Fresh water for drinking water in hotels and for other uses are in short supply in the Caribbean. Most of the islands utilize seawater desalination (seawater reverse osmosis) for most of their supply. In the Caribbean water treatment in various forms deliver fresh water for use in anything from agriculture, industry, and all the needs for the hospitality industry including food preparation and drinking water in hotels for the biggest part of their economy.

Although there are isolated cases of water of questionable quality most of the water treated and stored properly throughout the Caribbean is safe to drink, brush your teeth, and bathe in. If you do have underlying intestinal health conditions we would suggest that for food preparation, drinking and teeth brushing we would recommend using bottled water. Caribbean water treatment has vastly improved over the years and continues to provide safe drinking water.