This is general guidance, not legal advice — have a lawyer review this before launch, especially the liability and governing-law sections, which vary significantly by jurisdiction.
By using The Trip Tails ("the site"), you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the site.
1. What The Trip Tails is
A magazine of true, first-person travel stories written by real travellers. We are not a booking site, travel agency, or tour operator, and nothing published here constitutes travel advice, safety guarantees, or professional recommendations — see our Disclaimer for more.
2. Submitting a story
- Your story must be true and something that actually happened to you.
- You confirm you have the right to submit any photos included.
- You retain ownership of your story. By submitting, you grant us a license to edit, publish, and display it on The Trip Tails with your byline. You can request removal at any time.
- We reserve the right to decline, edit, or request changes to any submission.
3. Reader accounts
Creating an account requires a valid email address. You're responsible for keeping access to that email secure, since our sign-in links are sent there. One account per person — don't create multiple accounts to evade a block or manipulate votes.
4. Comments
When you comment on a story, you agree not to:
- Post anything false, defamatory, harassing, hateful, or illegal
- Impersonate the story's author or any other person
- Post spam, advertising, or unrelated promotional content
- Attempt to circumvent a block placed by a story's author or by our moderators
We may hide, remove, or restrict comments that violate these terms, and may suspend accounts that repeatedly do so. A story's verified author may block individual readers from commenting on their own story's thread — that's their call to make.
5. Claiming authorship
If your submitted story is published, we may send a one-time invitation link to claim it and link it to a reader account. This lets you reply to comments on your own story as a verified author. Claim links are personal to you and shouldn't be shared — if you believe someone else has claimed your story in error, contact us immediately.
6. Verified badges
Verified/Top Storyteller badges are awarded at our editorial discretion based on factors like story quality, engagement, and community standing. We reserve the right to award, withhold, or remove a badge at any time.
7. Story of the Week / Month / Year
Story of the Week and Story of the Month are selected editorially. Story of the Year includes a reader vote — one vote per account, and we reserve the right to invalidate votes we believe are fraudulent (e.g. bot activity, vote manipulation).
8. Trip cost information
Cost breakdowns submitted alongside stories (flights, accommodation, food, daily spend) are self-reported by the traveller at the time of their trip. Prices change — treat these figures as a snapshot of one person's experience, not a current quote or guarantee.
9. Acceptable use
You agree not to:
- Scrape, republish, or bulk-download site content without permission
- Attempt to bypass rate limits, moderation, or security measures
- Use the site to distribute malware or attack other users or our infrastructure
10. Content ownership
Site design, branding, and editorial content we produce are owned by The Trip Tails. Contributor stories remain owned by their authors under the license described in Section 2. Reader comments remain owned by their authors, who grant us a license to display them alongside the relevant story.
11. Disclaimers and limitation of liability
The site and its content are provided "as is." We don't guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or current relevance of any story, cost figure, or destination information. To the fullest extent permitted by law, The Trip Tails isn't liable for any decisions made or losses incurred based on content published here.
12. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms from time to time. Continued use of the site after a change means you accept the updated terms.