What is switched on today
We keep this box current, and it is the honest answer to “what is actually running right now”.
| Category | Status today | What it would do |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | On, always | Serves the page, keeps the site up, blocks abuse. Cannot be switched off. |
| Analytics (Google Analytics 4) | On, but only if you agreed | Tells us which pages are read and which are ignored. |
| Advertising | Off | Would let an advertiser or ad network show and measure ads. |
| Personalisation | Off | Would remember your preferences between visits. |
Last reviewed: September 2026. A row that says “off” is collecting nothing about you. The analytics row says “only if you agreed”, and that is literal: the measuring code is not loaded at all until you say yes, so if you have not, or if you said no, there is nothing running to collect anything. The rest of this page describes what happens when a row is on, so that you know in advance rather than after the fact.
What we collect, in every case
The site is served over the internet, so our hosting provider and our content delivery network (Cloudflare) receive the technical information that every web request contains: an IP address, the page requested, the browser and operating system, and a timestamp. This is unavoidable. It is used to deliver the page, to keep the site available, and to block automated abuse, and it is not used to build a profile of you.
The lawful basis for this is our legitimate interest in operating a website that works and is not knocked over by bots.
Analytics
When analytics is switched on, we use Google Analytics 4 to understand which pages people actually read, how they arrived, and where they gave up. We use it to decide what to write next. We do not use it to identify you.
- We ask before anything loads. A bar at the foot of the page asks once, with Accept and Decline the same size, side by side. Until you choose one, Google Analytics is not loaded, no request is made to Google, and no identifier exists. Declining is not a setting we remember and ignore: there is nothing to switch off, because nothing was started.
- Where you are decides how we ask. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Israel, Brazil and Canada, and anywhere we cannot identify, nothing is measured until you agree. Elsewhere, where the law asks for a clear notice and a real way out rather than prior agreement, measurement runs and the same bar offers to stop it, in one click.
- If your browser sends the Global Privacy Control signal, we treat that as a no before asking, everywhere, and record that it was the browser rather than you who said it.
- Saying no deletes what is already there. Any
_gacookie on this domain is removed the moment you decline or change your mind. - Changing your mind is one click, from any page. “Cookie choices” sits in the footer.
- We keep a record of the choice itself, because we have to be able to show that you were asked and what you answered. It holds the date, the choice, the country, the language, the version of the words you read, and a random id that is also in your own cookie so the record can be found again. It holds no IP address, no browser fingerprint and no page address. Records are deleted after two years.
- We enable IP anonymisation, and we do not send Google any information that identifies you personally (no name, no email, no account, because we do not have one).
- Google acts as our processor and may process the data outside the European Economic Area. Transfers rely on the European Commission’s adequacy decision for the United States and on standard contractual clauses.
- You can opt out at any time, through the “Cookie choices” link in the footer of any page, or with Google’s own opt-out add-on.
Advertising
If advertising is switched on, this page will say so in the box above, and the following applies.
- We would work with advertising partners who may set cookies or similar identifiers to show ads and to measure whether anyone looked at them.
- We ask for your consent first. Under the ePrivacy rules and the GDPR, advertising and profiling cookies require your active agreement, and refusing must be as easy as agreeing.
- We would never sell your personal data, and we would never let an advertiser make a page look like editorial. Anything commercial is marked as commercial. Our editorial policy is the promise that outlives any advertiser.
The trip planner
When you build a plan in the planner, our server sends Google Gemini the options you picked (who is travelling, the month, how long, what you want from the trip) and the stops the planner chose, together with passages from our own pages. It never sends what you type into the planner bar, and nothing that identifies you: the request comes from our server, not from your browser. Gemini writes a few short sentences, which are checked automatically against our rules before you see them. We use the free tier of Gemini, under which Google uses what it receives to improve its products and people at Google may read it, so we send only those options.
The planner also records each step you take (the options you pick, the plan it built and, in the planner bar, what you typed, with email addresses and phone numbers removed) inside the page, in a form an analytics tool can read. The page does not store that record, and it is gone when you leave; it is collected only by the analytics described above, and only when that is switched on.
Cookies
| Purpose | Name | Set by | Needs consent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keeping the site up, blocking abuse | cf_clearance | Us, Cloudflare | No: strictly necessary |
| Remembering your cookie choice | gt_consent | Us | No: strictly necessary |
| Measuring which pages are read | _ga, _ga_KNTRWSW626 | Google Analytics 4 | Yes |
| Showing and measuring advertising | none, today | Advertising partners | Yes |
The names are there so you can check us. Open your browser’s cookie list for this site: if you have not agreed to analytics, you will find no cookie whose name begins with _ga.
You can refuse or withdraw consent at any time, and withdrawing is as easy as giving it. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser, though the strictly necessary ones cannot be turned off without breaking the site.
What we never do
Some things are not a setting, and will not become one.
- We do not sell your personal data.
- We do not ask you to make an account, because there is nothing here to log into.
- We do not collect special category data (health, beliefs, sexuality, and the rest). Do not send it to us.
- We do not knowingly collect anything from children under 16. If you believe a child has sent us something, tell us and we will delete it.
If you write to us
If you send us an email, we have your email address and whatever you put in the message. We keep it only as long as it takes to deal with what you asked, and we do not add you to a mailing list you did not ask for.
Your rights
If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you have the right to ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to have it sent to someone else. You can withdraw consent at any time without giving a reason.
You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority. In Greece that is the Hellenic Data Protection Authority.
Changes
When this policy changes, the date on the box above changes with it. If a change means we start collecting something we did not collect before, you will be asked to consent before it happens, not told about it afterwards.
Contact
Write to us through the contact page and say what you want us to do. We answer.