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Almost every article on this subject gives you a list of countries, which is exactly the wrong shape of answer. Water safety is not national — it varies by city, by neighborhood, by building, and by season. A capital city can be entirely fine while a town two hours away is not, and a hotel with old pipes can serve unsafe water in a country where the supply itself is excellent. What you need is not a list. It is a method.
Ask the right question, and ask it locally
Do not ask "is the tap water safe here?" You will get a polite answer shaped by what the person thinks you want to hear, and by their own tolerance, which is not yours.
Ask instead: "Do you drink the tap water in this building?" That is a specific, factual, easy question, and the answer is reliable. Ask the accommodation, not the internet. Ask a pharmacist, who deals with the consequences. If the staff of the place you are staying drink from the tap, that is by a distance the best evidence you are going to get.
Local people are not immune to unsafe water. They have adapted to their water. That distinction is why "the locals drink it" is reassuring about contamination and unreliable about how your stomach will respond.
The two different risks people conflate
Genuine contamination. Bacteria, viruses, parasites, and in some places heavy metals or agricultural runoff. This is a real health risk and it is what water treatment is designed to address.
Unfamiliar but safe water. Different mineral content, different treatment chemistry, a different local microbial profile that residents have long since adjusted to. This will not harm you but it can absolutely upset you for a day or two.
Both feel identical when you are experiencing them. Knowing they are different explains why a place can be genuinely safe and still not agree with you in the first week.
The things people forget after they have sorted the drinking water
This is where most travelers actually get caught, because they solve the obvious problem and not the quiet ones:
Ice. Frozen unsafe water is unsafe water. In many places commercial ice is professionally produced and completely fine — the cylindrical ice with a hole through it is a good sign of that. Irregular hand-cut chunks are worth a second thought.
Brushing your teeth. A small amount, but a daily one.
Salad and unpeeled fruit, which have been washed in whatever the local water is.
Refilled bottles. Check that the seal on a bought bottle is intact.
Hot drinks are almost always fine, because the water has been boiled. Tea and coffee are safe in places where the tap is not.
The bottled-water problem
Buying bottled water solves the safety question and creates three others. It is a running cost that is trivial per bottle and substantial over a month. It is a genuine environmental problem in exactly the places least equipped to handle the waste. And in some destinations the bottled supply is itself poorly regulated, which means you may simply be paying for the same water in plastic.
For a long weekend, buy bottled and do not think about it. For anything longer, or anywhere remote, a filter bottle is the better answer.
GRAYL GeoPress 24oz Water Purifier Bottle
Press the inner cylinder down and you have purified water in about eight seconds — it handles viruses as well as bacteria and protozoa, which most simple filters do not.
Filter or purifier — the distinction that matters
These words are used loosely in marketing and they mean genuinely different things.
A filter physically strains out bacteria and protozoa. That covers most of what you would meet from a mountain stream. Viruses are small enough to pass straight through.
A purifier deals with viruses as well. In much of the developing world, waterborne viruses are the relevant risk, which is precisely where travelers are most likely to be relying on the bottle. If you are buying one item to cover unfamiliar municipal supplies, buy the purifier.
Neither removes dissolved chemicals or heavy metals unless it specifically says so. That is a different problem and a rarer one, but worth knowing the boundary.
The bottom line
Skip the country lists. Ask the people in the building you are sleeping in whether they drink it. Remember that ice, teeth and salad are part of the same question. Buy bottled for a short trip; carry a purifier for a long one or a remote one. And give your system a week to settle before concluding that anything is wrong — a great deal of what travelers blame on water is simply unfamiliarity, and it passes.
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