Been there
Every guide on destination.com is written by someone who has personally visited the place they are writing about. No desk-research rewrites. No AI-generated itineraries. No wire-service recycling.
The byline is the contract. If a writer's name is on a guide, they have been on the plane, in the room, and at the table within the window the guide covers.
Our editors are listed at /authors with photos, bios, credentials, and the regions each one covers.
Verification and dating
Every destination hub and major guide shows a "Verified {date}" line in the footer. That date is updated when an editor has re-read the page, re-checked the recommendations, and confirmed nothing material has changed. We do not auto-refresh that line on every deploy.
If a hotel has closed, a restaurant has changed hands, or a visa rule has shifted, we update the page and restamp the date — we do not leave a stale recommendation live under a fresh date.
Photography and credits
We commission original photography on our highest-traffic guides and destinations. Where a photo is commissioned, we credit the photographer on the page.
Where we use stock photography — typically for programmatic pages, neighborhood pages, and country hubs — we say so. The label "Image: stock" or a visible attribution line appears beneath every stock shot.
We do not accept photography from hoteliers, tourism boards, or brands as editorial imagery. If a hotel supplies a photo, it is labelled as such.
Affiliate links
We earn a commission when readers book hotels, flights, packages, or experiences through a small number of trusted partners — primarily Expedia, Booking, and Viator. That commission never changes our editorial opinion or the placements in our guides.
Every affiliate placement on destination.com is labelled "Affiliate" in the UI. Book buttons are explicit about routing to a partner site.
We do not use cloaked links, hidden redirects, or disguised affiliate attribution. A reader can always see, before clicking, where the link is taking them.
No paid placement
We do not accept payment in exchange for editorial coverage. No hotel, tourism board, PR agency, or brand has ever bought a mention, a kind adjective, or a position in a ranking on destination.com.
We do occasionally accept press stays, familiarisation trips, and media rates. When we do, we disclose the arrangement on the resulting page — and we retain full editorial control over whether and how the property is covered. We have declined to cover press-stay hotels we did not find worth the reader's time.
Sponsored content
We accept sponsored posts. They are clearly labelled "Sponsored · Paid partner" at the top of the page, in the same visual weight as our editorial titling. They never appear in the "Editor's Picks", "Staff Favourites", or cover-story positions.
Sponsored partners can brief us on what they want to say. They cannot edit our copy for factual claims, and they cannot approve final wording on anything we present as our own voice. If a brief conflicts with what we believe to be accurate, we walk away from the campaign.
AI in the newsroom
destination.com does not publish AI-generated editorial copy. No LLM writes a guide, a destination hub, a neighborhood page, or an article you see under an editor's byline.
We do use AI as a research tool — to surface leads, summarise source material, translate interview tapes, and spot-check facts. Every AI-surfaced lead is independently verified before it appears on the page. If an AI tool produces a fact we cannot verify through a primary source, we drop it.
We do not use AI-generated imagery in place of photography. We may use AI for minor retouching and colour grading on commissioned photos; we do not fabricate scenes, places, or people.
This policy was last reviewed in April 2026 and will evolve as the technology does. Significant changes are announced on this page with a date stamp.
Sourcing
Where a guide relies on a specific source — a hotel director, a chef, a guide, a local historian, a tourism officer — we name them on the page. Anonymous quotes are reserved for safety-sensitive interviews (e.g. unrest reporting, wildlife enforcement) and require editor approval before publication.
Statistics, prices, and claims about conditions on the ground carry their source in the copy or a footnote. If a number looks precise, we want the reader to know where it came from.
Fact-checking
Before publication, every guide is read by a second editor. For cover features, research projects, and long-form essays, a dedicated fact-checker verifies every name, price, date, claim, and quote against primary sources — receipts, booking confirmations, tape logs, official publications.
Fact-checking queries are documented in our internal tracker and preserved as a record of what was checked against what.
Corrections and takedowns
If we get something wrong, we correct it publicly on the page itself — with a dated correction note at the bottom explaining what changed, what it changed from, and thanks to the reader who flagged it.
We do not silently edit. We do not remove a post to bury an error. If a guide is pulled down for any reason — safety, a legal issue, a stale post — the URL returns a 410 Gone with a note explaining why.
To flag an error, email corrections@destination.com. We aim to reply within one business day. Urgent safety corrections are acted on same-day.
Safety and responsible reporting
We do not publish specific location details for at-risk wildlife, protected archaeological sites, or communities where tourism pressure has been flagged as a problem. Generalities only.
When we write about places with active travel advisories, conflict, or natural-disaster aftermath, we consult official advisories (US State Department, UK FCDO, Smart Traveller, Global Affairs Canada) and flag the advisory inline, dated.
We don't recommend a destination is 'safe' off the back of a single editor's visit. Safety claims come with a date and a source.
Independence
destination.com is independently owned. We take no funding from hotel chains, tourism boards, OTAs, or adjacent travel industry principals. Our revenue is affiliate commissions, newsletter sponsorships with the disclosures above, and a small number of brand partnerships handled at /advertise.
If you are a reader, you are the customer. We work for you.