Editorial Policy & Disclosure
How we create content, make money, and keep our recommendations honest. We believe in full transparency — if you're curious enough to read this page, you deserve straight answers.
Last updated: May 2026
Our Editorial Approach
Our main goal with Greek Trip Planner is to share useful, experience-based travel guides that help you plan a better trip to Greece. Every recommendation in our planner and every guide on our blog is rooted in real experience — places we've actually been, food we've actually eaten, ferries we've actually taken.
We write the kind of travel advice we'd want to find ourselves: practical, honest, and specific. If a popular destination is overhyped for certain travelers, we'll say so. If a lesser-known spot is extraordinary, we'll tell you exactly why and how to get there.
We also supplement first-hand experience with careful research — checking current prices, ferry schedules, opening hours, and local regulations. But research alone is never enough. The core of every guide is always personal experience from someone who has been there.
How We Make Money
While all content on Greek Trip Planner is free, the site needs revenue to keep running. We earn from three clearly separated revenue streams. We've structured them this way deliberately so that you, the reader, can always tell what you're looking at and why it's there.
Affiliate Commissions — our primary revenue source
When we link to hotels, tours, ferry bookings, travel insurance, or other travel products in our blog posts, some of those links are affiliate links. If you click one and make a purchase, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We work with partners like GetYourGuide, Booking.com, Viator, DiscoverCars, EKTA Travel Insurance, and similar travel platforms.
All affiliate links on our site carry the rel="sponsored" attribute, which is the technical disclosure required by Google and aligned with current SEO best practices.
The choice of which affiliate partner to link to is always made on editorial merit first — we recommend the option we'd genuinely use ourselves, and only then check whether an affiliate link is available. If it isn't, the recommendation stays anyway.
Featured Partner Placements — clearly labeled, never disguised
A small number of travel companies pay to appear as Featured Partners in specific sections of our site. These are visually distinct, clearly labeled inventory units — think of them like the sponsored listings on Booking.com or the partner cards on comparison sites, not like editorial recommendations.
What this looks like in practice:
- ●Every Featured Partner placement carries a visible “Featured Partner” label
- ●Featured Partner cards have a distinct visual treatment that separates them from editorial picks
- ●All links inside Featured Partner placements carry
rel="sponsored" - ●Featured Partners never replace, downgrade, or influence our editorial picks
Where Featured Partners appear in our articles:
- ●The top of every article stays editorial-only: the hero, the quick-answer summary, the “best of by category” box, and the Editor's Picks section. Featured Partners never appear above the fold or in the editorial summary.
- ●Featured Partners appear deeper in the article, in their own section with its own heading (typically “Also worth considering” or “Featured partners in [destination]”), structurally separated from Editor's Picks.
- ●Featured Partners and Editor's Picks are never interleaved or ranked together. A “Top 5” list will only contain Editor's Picks.
- ●In our comparison tables, Featured Partners appear as additional rows clearly labeled.
Why we do this: Affiliate revenue alone doesn't fully fund the editorial work behind 133 destination guides. Featured Partner placements help us pay for the certified guides, the OSINT verification, the photography, and the ongoing updates that keep our content useful. We chose this model — clearly labeled inventory, structurally separated from editorial content — over the more common alternative of disguised paid recommendations because it's the only version we can defend to our readers.
Editor's Picks — never for sale
The ★ Editor's Picks in our restaurant, hotel, and tour guides are selected by our certified Greek tour guides based on personal visits and field verification. These designations are never available for purchase under any circumstances. No payment, advertising spend, partnership relationship, or commercial arrangement can result in an Editor's Pick designation. If we ever decline a Featured Partner deal, it's usually because the operator wanted something we don't sell — most commonly, an Editor's Pick badge.
What We Don't Do
- ●We don't accept payment in exchange for editorial recommendations. Editor's Picks, “Best of” rankings, and editorial endorsements are never for sale. Companies cannot pay to be recommended.
- ●We don't publish sponsored articles disguised as editorial content. Any paid content is clearly labeled, attributed to the sponsor, and visually distinct from our editorial work. We do not ghostwrite or republish sponsor-supplied articles under our team's bylines.
- ●We don't accept dofollow links on paid placements. All commercial links carry
rel="sponsored"— this protects both us and our partners from Google policy issues. Any site that offers dofollow paid links is putting both parties at risk. - ●We don't run display advertising or programmatic ads.
- ●We don't sell your data or email address.
Editorial Independence
This is the part we care about most. Our affiliate relationships and Featured Partner placements never influence our editorial recommendations. Here's how we ensure that:
- ●We recommend first, monetize second. We choose what to recommend based on quality and experience. Only after making that editorial decision do we check if an affiliate link is available.
- ●Featured Partners are visually separated from editorial content. A Featured Partner card in an article does not mean that operator is editorially recommended — it means they've paid for visible placement under our clearly disclosed terms.
- ●We include negative opinions. If a popular hotel is overpriced or a famous restaurant has declined, we say so — even if it means losing potential affiliate or partnership revenue.
- ●We disclose clearly, both technically and visibly. All commercial links carry
rel="sponsored". Featured Partner placements carry visible labels. Articles containing affiliate links include a disclosure notice at the top. - ●We'd give the same advice to family. This is our gut check. If we wouldn't recommend a place to our own parents or friends visiting Greece, it doesn't make it into our editorial picks.
Featured Partner Program
For complete transparency about what kinds of Featured Partner relationships we accept:
We work with:
- ●Travel-related companies operating legitimately in Greece or serving travelers to Greece
- ●Hotels, tours, transfers, car rentals, restaurants, travel insurance, connectivity, and related travel services
- ●Brands whose offering we would be willing to use ourselves or recommend to a friend
We don't work with:
- ●Gambling, crypto, adult content, CBD, weapons, or predatory financial products
- ●Companies operating outside the travel and tourism vertical
- ●Pure link-buying intermediaries or SEO agencies acquiring links on behalf of undisclosed clients
- ●Operators with significant unresolved consumer complaints or reputation issues
- ●Anyone requesting dofollow links, exact-match commercial anchor text, or undisclosed sponsorship
Editorial rules we always apply:
- ●Featured Partner content is reviewed and edited by our team before publication
- ●Anchor text is limited to brand name, brand + descriptor, or generic phrases
- ●We retain the right to remove a Featured Partner placement if the operator's quality, reviews, or operations deteriorate significantly
- ●A pro-rated refund applies if we initiate removal
If you're a travel operator interested in our Featured Partner program, our partner page has the details.
Our Use of AI
We use AI in two distinct ways, and we think it's important to be clear about both:
The Trip Planner Tool
Our AI trip planner uses artificial intelligence to generate personalized itineraries. It's trained on our own local knowledge, real ferry data, and years of experience. The AI is a tool for personalizing and scaling the advice we'd give in person. It's powerful, but it's not infallible — we always recommend double-checking ferry schedules and critical bookings independently.
Blog Content
AI may assist with research, structuring, or drafting certain parts of our blog content. However, every guide is reviewed, verified, and edited by our team members who have personally visited the destinations. The recommendations, opinions, and local insights come from real human experience. We don't publish AI-generated content that hasn't been verified against first-hand knowledge.
Content Accuracy & Updates
Travel information changes constantly. A restaurant that was excellent last year might have changed owners. A ferry route might have been discontinued. We do our best to keep everything current, but we're a small team covering a lot of ground.
We review and update our most popular guides regularly. When we update a guide, we note significant changes. If destinations or details have changed, please let us know — reader feedback is one of the most valuable ways we keep content accurate.
A note on prices: All prices mentioned in our guides are approximate and based on the time of writing. Greek tourism prices can vary significantly by season, and costs for things like ferries and accommodations change annually. Always verify current prices before booking.
Photography
We use a mix of original photography taken by our team and licensed stock photography. We try to select images that accurately represent each destination — not overly filtered or misleading “golden hour only” shots that make everywhere look like paradise. Greece is beautiful enough without needing to fake it.
A Note on This Policy Change
If you've read our editorial policy before May 2026, you'll notice we've evolved how we describe our revenue model. The earlier version said we don't accept “paid placements.” That was true at the time, but as the site has grown we've introduced a transparent Featured Partner program with clear labeling, separation from editorial picks, and the same rel="sponsored" standards we already applied to affiliate links.
We chose to add this category — and tell you about it openly — because the alternative was either (a) declining to ever introduce sponsored inventory, which would have limited what we could fund editorially, or (b) doing it quietly without telling you. Option (b) is what most sites do. Option (a) is what idealists do. We chose a third option: transparent labeled inventory with clear rules, which we think is the honest version.
If you spot anywhere on the site where the Featured Partner labeling isn't clear, or where you can't easily tell editorial from paid, please let us know. That's the system we're trying to maintain.
Questions About Our Policies?
If you have questions about our editorial approach, affiliate relationships, Featured Partner program, or anything else on this page, we're happy to talk.