Where can I find public water tap for cleaning/bathing in the Netherlands?
We are wandering around Netherlands (on foot, hitch hiking, bicycle). We don't sleep in camping site, we put our tent anywhere "in the bush".
We are use to travel on this way in Southern Europe but in Netherlands we have trouble finding water (public water tap, public wc / street fountain so we could get water for showering / laundry / cooking.
Until now we only found water tap in cemetery which are not the best place to shower, (especially on "remote" conservative area !).
Until know we could get enough water to cook by asking bars or restaurant but, not enough for the laundry and real shower.
If you live there, you might know some trick to find those precious water tap. Any other trick than laundry-bathing in smelly/polluted rivers, will be highly appreciated!
For instance in Southern Europe we find water to shower and laundry near churches (often there is tap), public fountain in parks, downtowns, cemeteries, free WC (street, train station). And when we can't manage to find anything we find a way (last option) in public WC in library toilet or bigger supermarket.
Notice : we know about warmshowers and couchsurfing website we just like to be independent, and spontaneous interaction and without taking into account that planing in advance would require quite a lot of organization / time / battery (because finding a plug is also quite a challenge: we fund one in a parking today!)
P.s: we know about the app "hoge nood" but it's not available on ios6
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First of all, in the Netherlands camping in the wild is prohibited, and they really don't like it.
Now you're in need for some water, first the good news, tapwater in the netherlands is filtered and ready to drink but like you said, you won't find much public water because of the expenses that are needed to get the water to a fountain (you have no watertowers and the land is indeed very flat), so they'd need to put up pumps and everything. So i'd say the solution here is a large watersack to carry around. You'll have to get Drinkingwater from Restaurants, Bars, Cementerys (watch out, water in cementarys or the like shouldn't be drank because the water stands alot and this can make you sick), farmers etc. I always carry around 3litres of drinkingwater, and for showering and washing my clothes, i'd either use a river, lake etc. also you could need a douchebag, i got a 20l douchebag from ortlieb which, so far, never disappointed me.
Just to stress it out a little bit more, if you get caught camping in the wild, the police can be a real hassle, and most likely they will. Better ask someone for permission to sleep on private property, and try not to sound German.
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There is a website which has a map listing all public fountains, some examples of how the fountains look can be found here. But most Dutch people tend to be friendly, so if you ask them if you can "borrow" a few liters of water, they tend to laugh and be very helpful.
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About water, I cannot say that much. As long as the water is flowing, mostly it is good, however if there are agriculture lands around the river (which is very often the case), it might be filled with pesticides or other chemicals making you sick.
Except for bars etc, I'm sure most people want to give some water as water from the taps is really cheap. So far, only in the Biesbos (an area called this way), which is quite a remote area people didn't want to give water since they did not have connection to the water system (which is very rare in the Netherlands).
About camping in the wild, yes it is prohibited, so don't get caught. In a forest this should not be a problem. I used to camp every year a few days in the winter time, and we got caught once. Luckily not by police. As far as I know, you have to hand over your camping gear and can expect a fine. But we had a forest watcher who caught us. He was in a good mood because he saw we did not make a mess. He said we had to leave within 20 minutes and leaving no traces behind, so that was ok. Probably because he liked there were still people enjoying the nature (which is rare these days).
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I've wild-camped a few times in NL without problems. I guess it all depends on how well you hide and where you are.
Can't really help for rural area's. But in less rural areas:
Laundry: I'd expect laundry facilities for a few euro's in the poorer neighborhood of cities. Where students or immigrants live.
Water/shower: some truck stops/gasoline stations near highways may have these facilities.
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