Updated 10/24/23
Our goal here at Travellers Worldwide, our number one goal is to make the best online travel guides. We make content for humans, by humans. Simple as that.
Our Editorial Process
While this sounds straight-forward enough, it’s actually a bit more of a process than you’d think. While other sites simply order content from third-party writers and throw it up, we take a much different approach.
After all, we want you to leave with both the answer you are seeking and helpful tidbits of information to make your trip both safe and enjoyable. To accomplish this, we use a three-step process for every guide we publish.
1. Research & Define Objectives
We believe a solid article starts well before it’s ever written. To start, we define strict guidelines for our content team; this guides them on what and how to research, resulting in more accurate and helpful guides.
Just like many other brands with a large online presence, our content team is comprised of both in-house writers, found on our “About Us” page, and third-party agencies and writers (aka the “Editorial Team”). This hybrid approach allows us to be more flexible with the our monthly content budget and eliminate publishing bottlenecks, ensuring we’re continually publishing high-quality travel content; we never want to leave you without new guides to read!
In either case, we have no leniency for bad content. By the first article submitted, we can tell whether or not the writer has a future here. If they submit a low-quality guide, we simply don’t use them again.
Using our rigorous writer screening process, we’ve assembled a top-notch team of what we believe to be the best writers in the travel industry. While other sites might use cheap, low-quality writers, we pay our team well, and this top-down approach is reflected in their guides, which include both first-hand knowledge and heavily-researched data points.
Expanding on this, we have our writers add both their own experience and first-hand knowledge, gleaned from combing through forums and online community groups. While they often have personal experience visiting a location, we believe it’s important to offer a variety of viewpoints; after all, there are many different travel styles.
Next, we silo guides, meaning that we tend to focus on one destination at a time. By writing several different guides on a single destination, a writer will become an expert on the topic, allowing them to add tidbits of information into the guide that would not be there had they written a single article.
Finally, using our pre-defined research and editorial processes, each writer assembles this information into a clear-cut, helpful guide that both answers the reader’s questions and expands the context of the query.
2. Review & Edit
Once the writer completes their article, our editors review, format, fact-check, and proofread the guide. We’ve published 1,500+ such guides, so we have this part down to a science. If we find any inconsistencies or misrepresented facts in the guide, we either send it back for revision or assign another writer to it.
Our editors are travel experts that are well-versed in both domestic and international travel, allowing them to use their own anecdotes and experiences to make the guides more helpful and entertaining. Additionally, using travel experts to review content ensures that we’re presenting the most accurate information possible.
3. Publish
After a guide has undergone the lengthy editorial process, we publish it. During this process, we give it a final read to ensure it’s clear, concise, and accurate, that there are no spelling or grammar mistakes, and that the guide is easy to read. We then add any relevant images, graphics, tables, and hit “publish” for the public to read!
Our Editorial Standards
We don’t overthink it, so we keep our editorial standards pretty basic:
- Fitness – Does the content written match the internet of the user? If it’s a question, does the article answer it? In the case of general topics, does the article cover all relevant topics and leave the user satisfied? If so, it’s a good fit for the audience.
- Formatting – We want our articles to be easy to read on all types of screens and devices. Is the guide easy to read? Are bulleted lists easy to scan? If so, it’s well-formatted.
- Accuracy – Each of our guides should be accurate. If a fact or statistic is cited, there should be context explaining its relevance to the article. Links to third-party sites should be relevant a place for readers to learn more about a topic. There should be no spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors. Images in the articles should be relevant to the topic(s) being discussed.
- Overall Quality – We seek to make the best guides possible. The reader should leave feeling excited to travel to a destination or to buy a product. If they have to search for answers in the article or search again, we didn’t do our job. Our guides should be the only ones our readers need to find information.
- Personal Experience – While it’s impossible to include your personal experience in every single guide, you should add it as much as possible (when relevant).
- Be Kind – We believe in being kind. We strive to include all viewpoints and types of people. We always seek to build each other up, and our guides should never bring anyone down.
- Objectivity – Leave the politics at home. There are many opposing viewpoints about all types of subjects, but we take an objective stance on each (religion, politics, etc.).
Corrections
While we’ve developed an extremely thorough editorial process, there are times when we might miss the mark on a guide. While we’ve updated most of our older guides to comply with our new process, there are still a few of them floating around that we might have missed.
As stated above, we seek to publish the best and most helpful travel guides as possible, and we’re indefinitely dedicated to this mission. If we’ve missed the mark on a guide or simply made a mistake, please let our corrections desk know by contacting andrew [at] travellersworldwide.com.
We’ll review your request and, at our discretion, either revise a section of the guide or redo it completely. After all, we want to make the best guides possible, and won’t let our ego get in the way of admitting we’ve made a mistake.
Affiliate, Opinion & Advice Disclaimer
While each of our guides is free to the public (meaning you can read them without paying), we do still have to pay our bills. To make money, we promote products and services within our guides and serve display ads throughout our site.
You can learn more about how we make money by reading our Affiliate, Opinion & Advice Disclaimer, which breaks down our monetization methods and affiliate partners in greater detail.