Toilet shortage leads to Airpnp, a website for when you have to go

It has been the ruin of many a pleasant outing: nature calls, but there's nowhere to go.

Now, a new website is making it easier for tourists to get much needed relief when travelling in an unfamiliar city or town.

The site, Airpnp, is modelled after the popular lodging website Airbnb, in which homeowners make their spare rooms or unoccupied dwellings available to paying lodgers for a fee - often considerably less than the cost of a hotel stay.

In a similar vein, users of Airpnp are matched with bars, restaurants, offices and homes where they can pay to use the toilets, albeit for a fee of US$5 or less.

The idea was the brainchild of Max Gaudin and Travis Laurendine, two New Orleans natives - they call themselves "entrepeeneurs" - who have encountered the problem frequently over the years during that city's riotous Mardi Gras festivities.