Loos with incredible views, lavish lavatories, outstanding outhouses ­ all are featured in this pictorial guide to the world's most stunning toilets. Whether they're high­tech or arty, amusing or amazing, each toilet has a photo and a description of its location. More than 100 restrooms to remember are featured, from Antarctica to Zambia.

As any experienced traveller knows, you can tell a whole lot about a place by its bathrooms. Whatever you prefer to call them – lavatory, loo, bog, khasi, thunderbox, dunny, bathroom, restroom, washroom or water closet – toilets are a (sometimes opaque, often wide­open) window into the secret soul of a destination.

In these pages you’ll find porcelain pews with fantastic views, audacious attention­seeking urban outhouses, and eco­thrones made from sticks and stones in all sorts of wild settings, from precipitous mountain peaks to dusty deserts. So, wherever you’re reading this, we hope you’re sitting comfortably.