UK and New Zealand- Clean and FREE toilets in every town/village

Have you ever been in UK ? Have you ever been driving up north, in Scotland? Have you been all the way up north, to the Shetlands? I have, and we were driving along. So we know how much important are the toilets breaks along the way.

And this is unbelievable but in every single village we went, we found some FREE public toilets (yes, FREE as in "no charge") and they were CLEAN ! All the time !! Clean super clean !

It's the same if you travel around New Zealand, from the south end of the South Island to the north end of the North Island. You'll always find some clean and free toilets along the way.

In France they only have the free toilets booths along the highways (the ones with the tolls too, yes, so I wouldn't call them free...)

People from everywhere around the world, we have a big lesson to take here. Tourists are normal people too, they need to pee once in a while. So they need public toilets. And clean toilets are always a lot nicer ! And make a good impression on people.

So why don't the town halls and/or the government hire somebody to clean the toilets? It will look better for the tourism of the country, and it will create new jobs !

Canada Bathroom: bath tub handle

In Canada, the shower/bath handle is pretty easy to use, way easier than in France.
Three parts in their system:
_ the shower jet
_ the water handle, which is round
_ the bath tub tap, in case you want to take a bath

To choose between bath and shower, you need to pull on a small lever on the bath tub tap.

To choose the temperature, you turn the water handle to the left (hotter) or to the right (colder). To get the water flowing you pull the handle towards you. The more you pull, the more water is flowing.

This handle is really easy to use, even if at first it's kind of strange. But it's easier than the double knobs (one cold one hot) system and more practical than the handle with an arm. Yes you know, the one you push inadvertently with your elbow while you're soaping yourself, and you end up discovering how life was under the ice age!!

Spain - Kitchen: Spanish way to get the dishes dry

In Spain, not everybody has a dishwasher. And people who don't have found the way to save space in their kitchen to get the plates drying without using the counter.

They just created a dish rack cupboard, and they installed it above the sink. So after you've rinsed the plates, just place them on the rack cupboard, above the sink, and let the water drop back in the sink.

It's practical: the cupboard is right in front of you while you're washing the dishes
It's space-saving: you don't use the space on the counter anymore and you can put more plates in the counter
It's safer: your plates are not in balance because you dish rack is too small
It's easy: you can grab the plates one by one without having to move the small plates that are above because you don't have enough space in the cupboard...

The only down side I can see is that if you're not tall enough to get to the cupboard, the plates might be more difficult to reach at. But nothing prevents you from installing the dish rack cupboard at a reachable level !!

Why a blOg about other countries ideas ?

Nowadays, everybody is traveling around the world, thanks to planes.

On my international trips, I discovered some really nice ideas that I think are worth talking about. They are actually worth exporting around, but this is up to you to really adopt them. Or sometimes it's up to the local governments/towns to take the decisions to accept them.

If, like me, you would like to live in a better place, but staying where you are, here are a few of the good ideas I met along the way. If you have any ideas you would talk about here, please comment this post.

The world is full of good ideas. Why don't we try to use them too ???