Belgian Problems that Travelers Face & Reasons to Avoid Belgium

Belgian Problems that Travelers Face & Reasons to Avoid Belgium

Hello everyone and welcome to the transat nomad family. In this video, we will be discussing Belgian problems that travelers face as well as some of the reasons to avoid Belgium. Before we get started, I’d like to let you know that I am in Belgium for a couple of weeks. And at the end of this trip, I’ll be recording my final verdict video comparing Belgium with other countries to help you decide if you should visit, while also giving you lots of practical tips on how to save time, money, and get the most out of your trip. This will be an exclusive video, but you can easily gain access to it by subscribing or donating any amount on buy me a coffeeopy.com/transit nomad always through the link in the video description below. With that being said, let’s begin discussing some of the most common Belgium problems that travelers face in Belgium in 2025. So the first and foremost the number one problem that is kind of hard to fix is the high cost of travel. It is one of the most expensive countries to travel in the world. Uh everything is expensive whether it comes to food or entertainment or um ticket train tickets, airplane tickets and most importantly accommodations. you’re going to have to pay extra for everything in Belgium. If you want to have a budget friendly trip, I would recommend avoiding this country because it is not a budget friendly destination. If you travel to Eastern Europe or Central Europe, you’re going to get much more value for your money. And that’s just a common thing. No matter which country you travel to in Western Europe, you’re going to have to pay more for everything. Also, you have to book everything ahead of time. Uh otherwise, it may or may not be available or it’s going to cost even more in addition to the high cost that’s already in the first place. So, keep that in mind. Another thing that makes Belgium stand out is the fact that it’s really difficult to find free toilets here. I was in London for a couple of weeks before coming to Belgium and uh it was way easier to find free toilets in London. Um whether it was at train stations or at some of the parks or at some of the fast food chains, I was able to use the toilet at no cost. However, in Belgium, even if you are a paying customer and you go and buy a burger or salad or something and you go downstairs to use the toilet with your receipt, there’s still a person there who’s going to charge you a euro, sometimes a little bit less, sometimes a little bit more depending on the location to use the toilet. I I do think that this kind of sucks because as a as someone who lives in California, most of the time I’m not used to it. And uh I’ve traveled to different countries in Europe and Asia and all over the United States. And it’s kind of uh something that I see only in Belgium and France and Italy. I think these are the top three countries where I was not able to find free toilets. Also, I I I remember this being an issue in Prague. I’m not sure why why why it’s like this. Um, it’s very sad because we are already paying for accommodations. We are paying for food. We are paying for the tickets. Everything includes taxes. So, we are already paying and spending a lot of money and they want to charge us more to use the toilet even if we already bought something in that place. I think it’s a little bit ungrateful, but it is what it is. One trick I have for you that may or may not work, um, if you are close to a train station and you see the train, um, that’s not departing yet, uh, it’s still going to be at the station, you can go inside the train, use the restroom quickly, and come out. I don’t recommend it, but it’s better than doing it outside in public if you really have to go and you don’t want to pay for it. Uh, so that is definitely something to keep in mind. By the way, right now we are at located in the city of Antworver. I hope I’m pronouncing it correctly. It is close to the Netherlands. Uh it’s more kind of north northern part of Belgium. It is a pretty impressive city in terms of the architecture. Highly recommend checking it out and exploring it if you have a chance. It’s less than an hour to come here by train from Brussels. And it does have a lot of cool things to look at, including the train station itself. The central train station is one of the most beautiful train stations um in the world. Uh definitely probably the most beautiful one in Belgium, but not as beautiful as the station I saw in Milan, Italy, but still very impressive. Now, going back to the problems the travelers face in Belgium, uh another one is your credit card. Um, if you have an American Express credit card, um, not a Visa, not a Mastercard, but AX, American Express, uh, be prepared, uh, for your payment to be declined. Some vendors accept it, some vendors do not accept it. So, if you’re trying to buy some food or buy some tickets to go somewhere and your card is declined, make sure you have a backup card with you um from Visa or Mastercard because MX cards are not accepted everywhere in Belgium and this also applies to France. Uh keep that in mind. The next issue that a lot of travelers face in Belgium is about language barrier. Uh unfortunately this is not an English-speaking country and it does not offer very clear translations or information signs for English people speaking people. Um, so when I was traveling in some other countries, even though they do not speak English, they have everything translated to English or almost everything like the most important crucial parts um things that you need to understand in order to get around. Uh, they would be translated to English because it’s kind of an international language. But you don’t feel that way in Belgium. I see mostly signs um in French or in Dutch and not so much in English. I’m not sure if it’s because they are very proud of their languages and their local culture or they don’t want too many tourists to come here or maybe it’s because of something else. If you know, let me know in the comment section below. Maybe they have some problem with English. But uh I I wish they had more signs in English. You can see these signs for people to go, where to go. They are all in other languages. Uh it’s really I I don’t feel that it’s very welcoming. You can take a look at that and let me know what you think about that. Explain yourself. Again, even even when I was in China, they would have translation for this in English. And I know, okay, if I want to go there, it’s gonna take this long. I can see this, I can see that, I can do this. If I want to buy this, I know what it is. Uh, not here. So, bring uh the tip I have for you to solve this, bring your smartphone with data and Google Translate. And, uh, this is going to help you translate um the most important information. You just point your camera at u the the label or at the sign, and it’s going to translate it for you automatically. I don’t know what I would have done without Google Translate. Uh I’m so grateful that we have this technology in 2025 as it makes it a lot easier for travelers to navigate throughout different cities and different countries. Take a look at this beautiful building. Definitely one thing that I can’t take away is the beautiful architecture that you can see throughout different cities in Belgium. Whether it’s Brussels or Antworp or other cities and towns, uh there are a lot of really impressive buildings to look at. [Music] So it kind of justifies the high cost. Although when you go to other countries in central or eastern Europe, you also see a lot of beautiful architecture and it costs less. So uh keep that in mind before making a final decision on uh where to go. So I did mention about the lack of free toilets. I mentioned about the high cost of travel. Now I mentioned about the credit cards. The next point I want to uh mention is the uh free water refill stations. They don’t have a lot of those here. If you are used to refilling your water bottle, um this might be a problem in Belgium. Um unless you know specific uh chains where they might do that for you or you ask someone or you just do it at McDonald’s. um that might may or may not work depending on the location, but for the most part they don’t have any water fountains or refilling stations that I’ve seen uh that are available for public use. Um some countries they they have them like all over the place. You can get as much water as you want, but not the case here. And this kind of makes sense cuz you can’t use the toilet for free, so you can’t get water for free. Kind of makes sense. Goes together, I guess. Now, uh some tips to save uh on your trip. In terms of buying things, it’s better to go to supermarkets than um doing that at restaurants. Restaurants are more expensive. Um the supermarket chains that I would recommend considering are Little and Tesco. Um, I would also recommend avoiding care for Care for seems to be the most popular chain here in Belgium, but it is uh rather expensive. Everything is double or triple um or just considerably more expensive than what you will see in other stores such as Little. Little is a budget friendly chain, just so you know, just in case. Um, another tip I have for you to save some money is to take advantage of their weekend train tickets. Um, if you buy it um for Saturday or Sunday and it’s a return ticket, meaning it’s a round trip ticket, you can uh pay a little bit less almost 50% less of the original price. And this discount is applied applied automatically when you buy it through the um official uh transit app which is called SB CB SDCB. I’m going to leave a link in the video description below so you can take a look at it. Um, but this also is a problem. This app and in general paying for public transportation in Belgium, figuring out what train you need to take, what ticket you need to buy, what your travel zone is, um, is a little bit more difficult than in some of the other cities that I’ve been to in the past. Um, it does take some extra time to figure it out. For example, with that app, uh you can get also a discount for buying 10 tickets at the same time, paying for 10 trips ahead of time, but it’s not very straightforward understanding which specific type of ticket you need to buy. Um if you’re traveling from a specific destination, they have different zones and different passes and your destination may or may not be in that central zone and there is no easy way to find out. So, I had to use AI to help me research about this and to help me understand all the different pass options. Another big issue with that app is that it makes you choose which transit agency you’re going to use. Uh, and this makes it a lot more complicated because I’m not familiar with all the local transit agencies and it it basically gives you their logos and you have to choose based on the logo like like a circle or an oval and some letter inside and I’m supposed to know which one have I’m going to take. Uh, I’ve had to ask people who work um on trams to help me understand which one I should choose and some of them they don’t even know. Even the locals don’t know how to pay for transit. There is no way to scan it. Um, if you’re using your smartphone, you can’t scan it on the tram. Um, but you can tap your credit card, but if you’re buying the pass with your smartphone, then you can scan that pass. You have to activate it on your smartphone, and you need to know exactly which agency you’re using if you want to um board before you board. So, it’s it’s a little bit more complicated. And when you’re taking the train, actually, I don’t see a way to tap your credit card. And if you wait until you’re approached by the fair inspector, they might charge you extra or even find you. So, you need to pay with your smartphone, but then how do you use that? You have to pay with the smartphone on the train and use the credit card to pay in the tram. Uh, it’s a little bit complicated. Also, they only give you 60 minutes with each ticket, which if you are traveling by tram to a train station and then you want to transfer from the tram to the train um and your pass includes that by the time the train arrives, it may be almost expiring and then you have to buy or activate another pass which I wish they they gave you a little bit more time um than 60 minutes especially for this kind of extensive uh network and requiring transfer. ers and things like that. And last but not least, I also want to point out that uh I do see some homeless people or some mentally sick people or some drug addicts. In general, different kinds of people. I I see them a little bit more here in Belgium than I saw them before this. I was in London. Um it’s something you should keep in mind. You might be approached and asked for money or asked for something else. I’ve been approached even inside trains, also outside at near train stations, also at uh different kinds of squares like the one we just passed. Something you should keep in mind. Uh it’s not the cleanest destination. I’m not sure about safety in particular, but it’s definitely something that uh you might be expecting here in terms of being approached, being asked for something a little bit more than some other cities in Europe. With that being said, I would like to point out that as an active traveler and business owner with experience, I might be able to assist you with trip planning, life coaching, and business consulting with all the details available at buymeacop.com/transitnomad or through the link in the video description below. This is where you can also find lots of exclusive content on many different cities across the globe, my helpful tips, PDF guides, and the option to request a custom video on any topic that matters to you. Thank you everyone for watching, commenting, liking, and subscribing. I’ll see you in the next one. Bye-bye.

In this video, we’ll discuss common Belgian problems that travelers face, as well as some of the reasons to avoid Belgium. From high travel costs and the lack of free public toilets to language barriers and safety concerns, these are things every visitor should know before planning a trip. I’ll also share my personal experiences and practical tips to help you prepare, avoid mistakes and make your journey smoother if you do decide to visit. For buying discounted public transit passes, download and install SNCB app.

I’m in Belgium for a couple of weeks, and at the end of this trip, I’ll be recording my final verdict video, comparing Belgium with other countries to help you decide if you should visit while also saving you time and money with practical tips on how to get the most out of your trip. This will be an exclusive video, but you can easily gain access to it by subscribing or donating any amount on https://BuyMeACoffee.com/TransitNomad

As an active traveler and business owner with experience, I might be able to assist you with trip planning, life coaching and business consulting with more details at https://BuyMeACoffee.com/TransitNomad/membership. This is where you’ll also find lots of exclusive content on different cities across the globe, my secret tips, PDF guides and the option to request a custom video on any topic that matters to you.

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I’m Transit Nomad, a world traveler, business owner, music composer, filmmaker and life coach on a mission to explore cities through the lens of public transportation. With every single donation or subscription, you’re not only making it possible for me to create new videos but are also gaining access to a private community with like-minded people and exclusive content.

Check out higher tiers for personal consulting covering everything I’ve learned in 10+ years about trip planning, productivity, budgeting, nomadic living, dating, communication, business development, project management, marketing, photography, videography, music production and other skills: https://BuyMeACoffee.com/TransitNomad

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