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Loos with Views,
Around the World

Can you recall a restroom that had a view?  When I challenged myself with that question, I came up blank except for a few memorable restrooms. One had a view of a scary hole in the ground, and the other was a toiiet in a clear plastic box of a room at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art–a Yoko Ono installation.  Interestingly, since my awareness was raised, just in the last few months I’ve come across three with a view.  I’ve also asked my fellow travel writers, photographers, and bloggers to share here a favorite picture they have snapped of a loo with a view.  Several of them have come up with views of a loo with a view.  I’ve also added some views from the exit door of loos.  Here you go.

But first, did you know there is a toilet museum in Suwon, Korea?
And did you know that scenically positioned dunnies (that’s what they call toilets there) litter the Austrailian Outback?
Plus, this port-a-potty surprise will teach you never to wait too long before heading to the port-a-potty!
Check out the impressive winners at America’s Best Restroom Contest Hall of Fame.
And here’s a book you’ll want for your own bathroom:  Toilets: A Spotter’s Guide.

1. This photo was taken in the ladies’ room at Thingvellir National Park in Iceland–one of the stops on the Golden Circle tour.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

2. The subterranean ladies’ room at The Holbrooke hotel in Grass Valley, California, features twin iron doors that would, if they could, open to tunnels that lead directly to one of the area’s many mines.  During the Gold Rush, miners would walk underground for 2 1/2 miles to get here to visit the subterranean saloon that is adjacent and would hitch their mules while they came in for a drink.  The saloon is reputedly haunted.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

3. Also in the California’s Gold Rush Country, this apple orchard greets folks who are waiting in line and exiting the restrooms at Machado Orchards fruit stand in Auburn.  What a lovely treat.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

4. While sailing around the island of Milos in Greece you get to see a number of picturesque fishing villages.  At the edge of one of these villages is a typical fisherman’s house, and in the usual blue and white colours.  But this house has what none of the others do, a small out-house or toilet with spectacular views over the south Aegean Sea. 
Photographed by Thomas Dowson, Archaeology Travel

5. This loo with a view was our bathroom during a breakfast that happened during a safari, somewhere on the Maasai Mara in Kenya, Africa.   After a dawn game watch, our drivers surprised us with an open breakfast.  We pulled into a beautiful clearing with a tree and some bushes . . . and this bathroom, which was strategically placed so it was not visible from the picnic area or jeeps but still offered gorgeous (and slightly unnerving) views of the open plains.
Photographed by Dani Blanchette, Going Nomadic

6. This is the “groover” set up near camp on the San Juan River in southern Utah.  We enjoyed this view on a river trip with outfitter O.A.R.S.  You can read a blog post by someone at O.A.R.S. who is responsible for placing the groovers.
Photographed by Greg Vaughn, Wanders And Wonders

7. When you’re in paradise, you can expect a view of the ocean and palm trees from everywhere in your bure–including the loo.  This civilized little enclosure is at the Yasawa Island Resort on Yasawa Island in Fiji. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

8. I was visiting a special “Walt’s Trains” exhibit at The Walt Disney Family Museum at The Presidio in San Francisco, California.  Imagine my surprise when I realized I had a view of the Golden Gate Bridge! 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

9. This photo was taken on a macadamia nut farm near Antigua, Guatemala, in the Spring of 2013.  A perfect place to meditate!
Photographed by Anita Oliver, No Particular Place To Go

10. This is the view from outside the public restrooms at Avila Beach in California.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

11. One of my personal favourite Aussie loos–on the sensational Lord Howe Island off Australia’s East Coast–this loo overlooks the twin peaks of Mounts Lidgbird and Gower that dominate the island.  It’s a long way to the top of Mt Gower @ ~ 3,000 ft!
Photographed by Marion Halliday, RedzAustralia

12. This dunny at Quobba Blowholes in Western Australia is my absolute favourite–a true blue long drop thunderbox, if ever I saw one.  It even opens up to views of the ocean.  
Photographed by Marion Halliday, RedzAustralia

13. This mature rhododendron is what you see when entering and leaving this pleasant stone restroom at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley, California. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

14. This was the loo (one hole behind each low wall) I used in a tiny village in northern China while I was living there to help with an ethnographic documentation of the village traditions.  It was open to the air, and villagers walked right by on a path without batting an eye.  The children were especially fond of perching on a hillside that overlooked the loo and waving to us foreigners as we stood up and exited.  Though I found modesty to be impossible in much of rural China, it was the children waving that was so amusing here. 
Photographed by Shara Johnson, SKJ Travel

15. This was the loo at a picturesque chata where my husband and I spent the night in the High Tatras mountain range in Slovakia.  There are few places so beautiful to wait in line outside for your turn on a toilet.  And at night, braving the brisk mountain air, we were rewarded with a sky full of stars as we trekked between the dorm room and the loo. 
Photographed by Shara Johnson, SKJ Travel

16. This photo was taken from the drop toilet at the top of MacKinnon Pass in Fiordland National Park on the South Island of New Zealand. We encountered this outhouse mid-way during our 4-day hike on the Mildford Track. You can only get to this loo view by hiking in. They have cut a window into the door, so you can enjoy the view while taking care of business.
Photographed by Suzanne Fluhr, Boomeresque

17. We knew we were someplace special the first time we walked into the bathroom in our room at the Tintswalo Atlantic outside of Cape Town, South Africa.  The hotel is the only property actually inside the Table Mountain National Park and sits immediately at the entrance to Chapman’s Peak Drive.  The location could not be more beautiful-–or more perfect.  In our room, there was a massive glass window looking out on waves in Hout Bay to the majestic Sentinel Peak beyond.  The view is spectacular!
Photographed by Laura and Lance Longwell, Travel Addicts

18. Peeing can be tricky enough when you are on safari in a jeep for hours, and even when there is a restroom available don’t count on finding relief.  Although there was a restroom in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, Africa, the animals in the park always come first.  This lion decided to demonstrate yet again that he is ‘Lord of the Ladies’, and that meant it was ‘no go’ for the rest of us!
Photographed by Jane Canapini, Grownup Travels

19. It is fitting that the entrance to the women’s restroom at the Frida Kahlo Museum house in Coyoacán, near Mexico City, should look this lovely. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

20. This entrance to the toilets at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, opens from a busy courtyard.  You’ll find the infamous “squatty-potties,” or, as the Chinese call them, “crouching tiger ones.”  Public restrooms in China are available at most attractions and in restaurants.  They are usually free and usually clean, but it is advisable to always pack along your own toilet paper. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

21. Each villa at the Viceroy Riviera Maya in the Riviera Maya area of Mexico features a palapa roof, an outdoor shower, and a private patio with plunge pool and hammock.  Those who are patient will see monkeys in the trees and mini-dinosaur lizards scurrying upright on two legs across pathways. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

22. Situated deep within the redwood-dense Avenue of the Giants in Northern California, this loo at the Eternal Tree House in Redcrest gave something else a view, too. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

23. A showerhead pokes out of these lava rocks in this outdoor shower at Paradise Taveuni resort on Taveuni Island in Fiji. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

24. The view as you leave the bathroom at The Neon Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada is almost electric. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

25. Oddly, this view as you leave the bathroom in Oatman, Arizona doesn’t have any burros in it.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

26. This restroom is not usually for public use.  It is inside a “green” demonstration home at Springs Preserve in Las Vegas, Nevada. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

27. A magnificent view of the Petronas Towers from the bathroom’s shower window at the Hotel Pullman Kuala Lumpur.
Photographed by James Kelley, Escaping Abroad

28. Bathtub with a view at the Venetian Palazzo in Las Vegas, Nevada. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

29. At the Indus restaurant in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, the window in this atmospheric restroom opens to a lovely garden and invites lingering. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

30. From the large handicapped bathroom stall at Casa Cubana in Oakland, California.  Lacking a shade to pull down, this restroom is perhaps a little too revealing. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

31. I didn’t want to take longer than absolutely necessary when I visited this restroom in Komodo National Park in Indonesia, home to the infamous Komodo Dragon.  But on this particular day I didn’t have to worry, because they were barely moving in the oppressive heat.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

32. I learned how to make boba pearl tea in this Taichung, Taiwan restaurant where the whole concept began.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

33. This lovely hedge garden is the view from a loo at the Evergreen Plantation in Edgard, Louisiana.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

34. Not meant to be used by visitors, this bathroom is seen on the Big House tour at Destrehan Plantation in Destrehan, Louisiana.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

35. This red, red restroom is on the second floor of the SFMOMA  in San Francisco, California.  Other floors have other colors.  
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

36. The spectacular Ou Ceramic factory in Wenzhou, China also has a fantastical restaurant and some of the most unusual restrooms I’ve ever seen.   This image depicts a moveable thick glass portal to the outside.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

37. This old-time outhouse is not currently in use.  Its view is of the birth house at the Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historical Preservation Site in Greenwood, South Carolina.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

38. When you open the door at the Las Islitas beach restroom in San Blas, Mexico, this is what you see. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

39. Part of the restroom is all the way outdoors in the teen center at Four Season resort Punta Mita, Mexico.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

40. View from the Women’s Latrine (this is part of a historic site, so not for use) at Manzanar National Historic Site in Independence, California.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

41. View redwoods from the restroom in the Playa restaurant in Mill Valley, California. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

42. View from restroom at the Morcom  Rose Garden in Oakland, California. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

43. View from the toilet at Hunte’s Gardens in Barbados. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

44. View from the toilet at The Farmhouse Inn restaurant in Forestville, California.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

45. View from the restroom in Chris Park, across the street from Ruby City, in San Antonio, Texas.  
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

46. View of the porthole in the men’s restroom in The Cliff Beach Club in Barbados.  
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

47. View from the ladies restroom in at Reds Meadow Resort in Mammoth Lakes, California.  
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

Ever seen this view? It’s still a familiar one in some places.

I’ve long chronicled my solo travels with a snapshot of my “Toes in Situ” in whatever country I’ve roamed.  While this image may not be the most winsomely alluring (unlike, say, my toes tickled by the bubbly surf at the edge of a beach in Bali), it nonetheless is among my favorites.  It oh so acutely reminds me of one of my most exotic adventures–3 weeks romping through the Gobi desert and hanging out with the Eagle Hunters in the Altai mountains of Mongolia, sleeping in frigid gers heated with yak dung, where even the “luxury” of an outhouse was few and far between.
Photographed by Dyanne Kruger, TravelnLass.com