How we build our guides

Who puts the guides together

Every guide on Tourlume is researched, checked and published by our team. We draw on official sources, recent traveller reports and established references, and turn them into the answers you'd want from a well-travelled friend: what it costs, when to go, what's worth it and what to skip.

We decide what goes into a guide and what stays out, and we're responsible for everything we publish. The rest of this page covers how we check it, and where our checking stops.

What we check, and what we don't

A wrong visa rule can get you turned away at a border. A meal that costs a few dollars more than we said cannot. So we spend our checking where a mistake hurts most.

• Visa and entry rules
  Checked against official government sources. Each guide links to the source next to its visa details.
• Entry fees
  Where a major site has a stable official ticketing page, we check the fee against it and link to it.
• Other prices
  Meals, transport, hotels and daily budgets are estimates from recent traveller reports and established guides. They are not checked against an official source and they drift, so use them to plan, not as a quote.
• Opinions
  The honest take and what to skip reflect what travellers consistently report. They are our judgement calls, not facts.

You can see both kinds of official link on the Machu Picchu guide.

Where our information comes from

1. 1
   Official sources

   Government visa pages, park and ticketing sites, transit authorities.
2. 2
   Recent traveller reports

   Reddit, dated forum posts and trip reports. For current prices, a recent report beats an old guidebook.
3. 3
   Established references

   Wikivoyage and Wikipedia, for geography, history and other facts that rarely change.

Photos, weather and the trip planner

Photos come from photographers on Unsplash and Pexels. We pick each one by hand, and we only label a photo as food, streets or people when that is what it shows.

The current weather shown on a guide comes live from OpenWeatherMap.

Plans from the trip planner are generated automatically from the destination, trip length, budget and interests you choose. We don't review a plan before you see it, and it can name a place that has closed or a price that has changed. Treat a plan as a first draft, and confirm opening hours and prices before you book.

Nothing is ranked by commission

No destination, hotel, restaurant or activity on Tourlume is placed higher because someone paid for it. There are no sponsored placements, no paid reviews and no affiliate links.

If we add affiliate links in future, they will come after the recommendation and be labelled. Links follow recommendations. They never lead them.

Reviews come from travellers

Only signed-in travellers who have verified their email address can post a review. We don't write, buy or seed reviews, and a guide only shows a star rating once real reviews exist.

What we get wrong

Prices go stale, visa rules change and places close. We fix these when we find them, but there is always a lag. Before you book, check visa rules and entry fees using the official links in the guide.

We have not visited every destination. The guides draw on research and traveller reports, and they never claim first-hand experience we don't have.

Spotted something wrong or out of date? Email hello@tourlume.com with the page and what you found. We check it and update the guide.