At y Travel Blog, we take pride in creating high-quality, trustworthy content that helps travelers plan trips and explore destinations with confidence. Our goal is to inspire, inform, and connect you to the planning tools and products, travel tips, destination activities, food, events, and businesses that make it special.
We believe in transparency, integrity, and first-hand experiences. Here’s what you can expect from our content and how we ensure its quality.
How We Choose What to Feature
We only recommend places and experiences that we genuinely believe in. Whether it’s an activity, hotel, restaurant, event, or local business, our selection process is based on:
- Personal Experience – We have either visited, stayed, dined, or explored the places we feature, ensuring first-hand knowledge of what we recommend.
- Local & Community Insights – We tap into our deep connection with our community and local experts to uncover the best experiences.
- Quality & Relevance – We prioritize businesses that offer great service, unique experiences, and align with what our readers are looking for.
- Deep Research: If we feature something we have not personally experienced, it’s because it comes highly recommended, and we know will help our community in some way. In these cases, we do deep research by scrutinizing reviews and customer ratings, investivating the brand’s story and background, actively engage with the community to capture valuable feedback, and leverage conversations with industry experts.
- Our own Expertise: As we’ve had 28 years of global travel experiences AND 15 years of professional travel blogging experience, we ourselves are industry experts, and have a good pulse on what makes someting a good experience or a brand a trustworthy company to support and promote.
Who Writes Our Content
All content on y Travel Blog is written, edited, and fact-checked by humans—no AI-written content here! However, we do rely on a small team of professionals to help us create high-quality articles:
- In-House Writing & Editing – Most of our content is personally written by us, but we also work with an experienced content SEO editor. Their role is to refine content structure, improve readability, and optimize for search engines—ensuring the people who need our information can easily find it.
- Guest Writers – The world is huge, and unfortunately, we can’t visit everywhere. We don’t want you to miss out on excellent travel ideas and we know our readers trust the quality of our publishing platform – coming directly to us for advice and insights. Therefore, we occasionally invite guest writers to contribute content on topics where they have first-hand experience. When this happens, the author’s name will be clearly displayed at the top of the page, with a bio at the bottom of the article.
- Writing Tools & Resources – We use online tools like dictionaries, thesauruses, and AI-assisted editing tools to improve clarity and structure. While AI can assist with idea generation and refinement, every article is carefully written and reviewed by humans before publication.
No AI-Written Content – Only Real, Human Expertise
All articles are researched, written, and edited by real people who care about delivering honest, insightful information. AI is never used to write our content, ensuring that every word you read comes from lived experiences and careful research.
We like humans and intend to keep our content human based, real, accurate, and relevant!
How We Keep Our Content Up to Date
Travel is always evolving, and so is our content. We regularly update our guides, lists, and recommendations to ensure they remain accurate and relevant. We:
- Conduct periodic reviews of our posts, with major content updates every 6-12 months.
- Fact-check information related to business hours, prices, and offerings.
- Incorporate reader feedback and community insights to enhance accuracy.
Hosted Trips & Gifted Products
Like many professional travel journalists, we sometimes accept press trips, hosted stays, or gifted products. This allows us to experience destinations, hotels, restaurants, products, and activities firsthand, helping us create in-depth and useful content for our readers.
However, our editorial integrity always comes first:
- If a hotel stay, tour, or experience has been substantially hosted or gifted, we disclose it at the end of the post.
- We are not paid by travel companies or tourism boards to write positive reviews.
- Our opinions remain 100% our own, and we provide honest feedback—including both the good and the not-so-good.
- Hosting or media support never influences our recommendations. If we don’t genuinely love something, we won’t recommend it.
- If we have a terrible experience it does not get published on our site or channels. So if you see something on here you know we think its valuable.
How We Vet Our Partnerships & Sponsors
We partner with brands and businesses that align with our values and provide value to our audience. If we work with a company in a paid capacity (such as sponsored content or affiliate partnerships), we disclose it clearly. Our standards for partnerships include:
- Authenticity – We only promote brands and destinations we trust and would recommend to friends and family.
- Local & Community Focus – We prioritize businesses that contribute positively to the destination’s local culture and economy.
- Reader Value – Any sponsorship or affiliate partnership must provide useful, high-quality experiences or products to our audience.
Sourcing Photos & Drone Footage
The photos on y Travel Blog are a mix of mostly our own images and some, tourism board photos, and licensed stock photography if we need to fill gaps. (We can’t always be everywhere and we don’t want you to miss out on something valuable because of that.)
- Our Own Photography – We work hard to capture our own images, often featuring us in them, to show that we are truly experiencing what we recommend.
- Tourism Board & Brand Images – When we don’t have our own images, we may use official tourism board or hotel-provided photos. These are always credited accordingly.
- Stock Images – Occasionally, we use licensed images from paid photo services like Deposit Photos and Yay Images to enhance our content.
- Drone Footage – Craig is a fully licensed and insured drone pilot and always adheres to legal guidelines and safety protocols when flying.
Monetizing Our Content
To keep y Travel Blog free for readers, we use a variety of monetization methods. These partnerships allow us to continue sharing helpful content at no cost to you.
Advertising
- Our site displays ads managed by Raptive, a highly trusted advertising partner in the industry. They have the highest ratings of all ad networks.
- Ads allow us to generate income while keeping our content free for you.
- When you visit our site, you’ll see a pop-up requesting consent to our cookie policy—this is a legal requirement facilitated by Raptive.
Affiliate Links
Some links on our site are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you make a purchase through them. These help support our work while ensuring you have easy access to recommended hotels, restaurants, and activities.
We only recommend products, tours, and services we genuinely believe in. Examples of affiliate programs we participate in include:
- Amazon Associates – We earn a commission on qualifying purchases through Amazon.
- Booking.com – We personally use Booking.com for hotel stays and like their free cancellation policy.
- GetYourGuide & Viator – These platforms allow you to book experiences and activities.
- Stay22 & Discover Cars – Great for booking vacation rentals and hotels and rental cars.
Sponsored Content
On rare occasions, we may partner with a brand for a sponsored post. These posts typically involve a company paying us to feature their product, service, or experience on our site.
- We only accept sponsored content from brands that align with our values and would be of genuine interest to our readers.
- All sponsored posts are fact-checked and written by us (or edited thoroughly if content is provided by the brand).
- We always disclose sponsored content—you’ll see a disclosure statement at the end of any sponsored post.
Corrections & Feedback
We strive for accuracy, but if you notice an error, please let us know! We are human after all!! And information can change rapidly before we’ve had a chance to update a post. You can reach us via our contact page or leave a comment on a post. We welcome constructive feedback and will promptly correct any inaccuracies.