Tap water Balkans

The Balkans is a big subject. Yes and no

Good point.
Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Monténégro and Albania

I think it depends on the country. I don't like buying bottled water, either, mostly for environmental reasons. If you are going to Turkey, my impression from my research so far is that bottled water should be used.

Cities in Croatia, Slovenia. Yes
Cities in Bosnia, probably, yes, hasn't killed me yet.

Albania, I drank the water but washed it down with home made raki out of a second hand liter coke bottle to kill anything bad in the water.

I'm going to Albania in May. On the first page of my aggregated travel notes (from sources like Lonely Planet) is this statement in bold type: Drink bottled water only.

I'd recommend checking the country-specific warnings on the CDC website.

EU countries have the same standards everywhere due to the Drinking Water Directive but the problem is old buildings and old pipes that may be the source of contamination. The water is good quality coming out from the water purification plants but not necessarily from all the taps. You have to use your own judgement.

I am one person’s experience but have been in all these countries in multiple locations (Slovenia least).

Albania in general would be the question. My lodgings would either provide water or tell me the tap water was ok - I took their word for it. So lots of “it depends” there but I might err on the side of caution - although once a van driver handed me a recycled plastic bottle to fill with water coming from a pvc pipe out of the side of a mountain. I did and drank half of it and was fine (no raki in sight) but it felt a little risky.

I bring a Lifestraw water bottle. It filters out a lot stuff.

denis,

I didn't experience any problems with the water in Croatia, Slovenia or Bosnia, but not sure about the other countries. Montenegro is probably safe, but I'd be more concerned with Albania. It might be prudent to buy bottled water there.

As mentioned above, its isnt always about the quality of the water, it can be about the quality of the building plumbing. I sort of know the subject and what I have seen in Europe, even in Western Europe, has been somewhat challenging to comprehend.

And for the comment that EU water is regulated, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Albania are not in the EU. Bring along something in case you get the trotts and enjoy.

Thanks for the great advice.

It's difficult to generalize about a whole country, when every city, town, village, rural area, or even farm, may have their own water supply and source, with treatment not always carefully monitored. It's like asking if the food in the US is safe. And as Mr É points out, it often in the distribution and storage that water gets contaminated, even in the plumbing in your hotel. The US has standards too, yet every year there are dozens of cases of illness due to contaminated water. The US has something like 150,000 public water systems.

The CDC makes recommendations based on their overall assessment of the history, level of oversight, the public health system, maintenance of infrastructure, and the health care system, of each country. My rule of thumb is to look at the quality of roads, to see how well infrastructure is maintained. When in doubt . . .

I read up om the Life Straw. Use that or something else with the same technology and you should be safe from anything but salt water, ice in your drinks and the surface contamination on fresh fruits and veggies. It's that surface contamination that caused some of the worst US e-coli incidents (rat poop on cabbage sort of stuff). I would also suggest you make sure the pork and chicken are well cooked. Use raki for the rest.