The privacy of our visitors to TheIntrepidTraveler.net is important to us.

At TheIntrepidTraveler.net, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is what types of personal information we receive and collect when you visit TheIntrepidTraveler.net, and how we safeguard your information.

First of all, we don’t collect any personal information on you at all—we don’t even know who you are, unless you sign up and post a comment (and we’re always happy to hear from readers). Even if we did, we would never sell your personal information to third parties. That’s just plain rude.

Frankly, we wouldn’t even know how to do that. This is just an informational site, run by an independent travel journalist who only knows (barely) enough HTML and CSS programming to make the site look more or less how he pictured it.

Also, we hate junk mail and spam just as much as you do, and would never do anything to subject our loyal readers to any more of it than they already receive. (We have a long-running fantasy of meeting one of these spam e-mailers at a cocktail party or something and punching him squarely in the nose.)

Servers, trackers, and ads

The server we use, like all servers, keeps track of such things as the search terms you might have used that led you to the site, and the site from which you came (if you surfed here from Google, Yahoo, MSNBC.com, or whatever), but it has no idea who you are. We do love to peek at that information, and use Google’s Analytics program to keep track of it all, but this is only for general statistical purposes (how many visitors the site receives, what countries they come from, that sort of thing) so we can better shape the site to match the needs of our readers. (Also, it’s just darn exciting to see that you have a visitor from a place like, say, Vanautu.)

TheIntrepidTraveler.net does, like most sites, use third party advertisements (Google ads, affiliate links, and the like) to support the site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether or not you have Flash installed.

This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

Truth be told, that’s pretty much all we know about it. We don’t really understand how it all works ourselves; all we know is that Google now requires us to post this privacy policy and disclaimer.

Cookies and javascript

One thing we do know is that you can chose to disable or selectively turn off third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with websites, especially if you’re booking something (cookies keep track of who you are so that, say, the airline website will know it’s you when you return the next day and can call up your itinerary, that sort of thing). This could also include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

(We would also like to take this opportunity to point out that there’s no need to turn off javascript for this site. We know some people do that to keep popup ads from, well, popping up, but we can assure you that there are no popup ads on this site—just the regular kind of ads in the margins. The only thing this site uses javascript for at all is for certain functionality issues, like controlling drop-down menus, photo galleries, and Twitter feeds—so if you turn it off, the site won’t work properly.)

Freebies and journalistic integrity

This is the bit required by the FCC.

Many of these trips were taken on my own time and my own dime. For others, I was sent by a magazine or other publication, and (ideally) they picked up the tab. In a few instances, I was hosted by the destination, tour company, or outfitter (in the industry, this is called a “fam trip” or a “press trip”).

Same goes for the gear that is reviewed: most of it I have bought myself; in some cases, review copies were sent to me to test.

In every single instance, what I have ended up writing about the trip or the item is the unvarnished truth, warts and all, no matter who was paying for the experience. My journalistic ethics are not up for sale. I am a reviewer and a critic, and the purpose of my taking these trips (or using this gear) is to kick its proverbial tires, so to speak, in order to explain all the pros and cons to you, the reader.

Think of it as if it were the automotive seciton of your lcoal paper. You think they go out and buy all those cars they review? Of course not. They borrow them to run a few test drives. Well I do the same thing, only I test drive vacations rather than Suburus.

Yes, this seems like a major perk, and it is, but don’t mistake a hosted trip for a vacation. It’s my job.

Full disclosure policy

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact Reid Bramblett (reid At reidsguides Dot com.

This blog does not accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. However, we will and do accept and keep free products, services, travel, event tickets, and other forms of compensation from companies and organizations.

This blog abides by word of mouth marketing standards. We believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified as paid or sponsored content.

The owner of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.

This policy was generated by the good folks at disclosurepolicy.org. To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

We cannot be held responsible…

As for the information contained on this site, it is all merely personal opinion and is intended for informational purposes only.

All assertions of fact were as accurate as we could make them at the time of publication, and we cannot be held responsible for any changes that have happened in the meantime. (Travel information has an infuriating tendancy to mutate when you’re not looking: restaurants close, new musuems open, tourist offices move, ferry schedules change, and prices always, always go up.)

This site also links to many other sites we think might be useful to travelers and readers, but we cannot be held responsible for the quality of information or other content on those sites.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

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