Privacy Policy

Here’s the whole thing in one breath: we’re John and Vi, we run this little travel blog because we love the places in it, and we are not here to harvest you, follow you around the internet, sell your information, or squeeze a nickel out of your visit. No ads. No marketing funnel. No mysterious “data partners.” You came to read some stories about spots we think are worth the detour, and that’s exactly what we hope you’ll do. Pull up a chair.

That said, a website is a website, and a few ordinary things happen when you stop by. Here’s the plain-English version of all of it.

Counting Heads (Our Analytics)

We like knowing which stories people actually read, the same way a shopkeeper likes knowing which shelf folks wander to. For that we use a self-hosted visitor counter that lives right here on our own server and doesn’t sell or share a thing. We also have Google Analytics running, which is the one outsider in the mix: it gives us the big picture, like how many people stopped by and which posts they enjoyed. We don’t use any of it to build a profile of you or chase you with ads. We just want to know whether the story about that roadside dinosaur landed.

If You Leave a Comment

Comments are our favorite part, so please leave one. When you do, the site keeps what you wrote along with the name, email, and (if you add one) website you type in, plus your IP address and browser details, which mostly help us keep the spam robots out. If you tick the little “remember me” box, a cookie saves your details so you don’t have to retype them next time. If you use a Gravatar, your avatar shows up next to your comment. We’re not doing anything with your email except, maybe, writing you back.

If You Sign Up for the Newsletter

If you hand us your email so you can get new stories, we use it for precisely one thing: sending you new stories. We’re not renting it out, selling it, or quietly folding you into some giant list. One click unsubscribes you for good, no hard feelings and no guilt trip.

Cookies (the Edible Kind Would Be Better)

A handful of small cookies keep the site working: remembering your comment details, keeping pages fast, that kind of housekeeping. Nothing tucked inside them is worth anything to anyone but you, and if you clear them, the site carries on just fine.

The Plumbing: Hosting, Security, and Speed

The site lives on SiteGround and sits behind Cloudflare, which together keep it quick and swat away the bad actors constantly rattling the doors of every website on earth. Like any host, they handle the basic request information (such as IP addresses) that every web server sees. We also run Google’s reCAPTCHA on the comment and signup forms to keep the bots out, which does mean Google sees a little of that interaction when you hit submit. It’s the trade we make so the comment section stays about travel and not counterfeit sunglasses.

Bits We Borrow from Elsewhere

Now and then a post includes something from another service, like a YouTube video or a Google map. Those embeds can set their own cookies and do their own tracking, exactly as if you’d visited that other site directly. We don’t control that part, so their rules apply to their stuff. If you’re careful about such things, that’s the corner to keep an eye on, and it has nothing to do with us.

Your Data Is Yours

Want to see what little we have on you, or have us erase it entirely? Just ask. Left a comment you’d rather take back? Tell us and it’s gone. This is a travel blog, not a vault, and we’re not clinging to anyone’s information. (A few things we may have to hang onto briefly for security or legal housekeeping, but that’s the boring exception, not the rule.)

About Kids

Everyone’s welcome to read along, but this site isn’t aimed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them. If you’re a parent and something here concerns you, email us and we’ll sort it out right away.

If Any of This Ever Changes

If we ever change how any of this works, we’ll update this page. Since we’ve got no plans to suddenly turn corporate or evil, we don’t expect the changes to be dramatic. If one ever is, we’ll say so plainly, right here.