How it works

Would I go back?

A 4.3-star average tells you nothing about whether you should go. It mixes a honeymoon with a family week and a business stopover, then hands you a number. “I would go back, but not in August with kids” tells you more than any average.

“Would I go back?” forces the traveller to commit to a real answer about their own trip. That is why there are no stars, no scores and no rankings anywhere on this site — only travellers, their trips, and their verdicts.

• Definitely — I'd do the same trip again, as-is.
• Yes, with conditions — I'd go back — but I'd change something (season, company, budget, setup).
• Probably not — It was fine, but it doesn't earn a second trip.
• Definitely not — I regret going, or I'd warn you.

On a destination page the verdicts stay plain counts — Would they go back? 2 definitely, 1 with conditions — never a percentage or a score. Averaging a “Definitely” with a “Definitely not” gives you a number that lies to everyone.

And the honest answers are protected: negative or critical reviews are never removed for being negative.

The same question, for every place

The verdict doesn't stop at the trip. On each report, the author can answer it for every place they named:

• Would I go back?the trip
• Would I stay here again?the hotel, the campsite…
• Would I eat here again?the restaurant, the café…
• Would I visit here again?everything else: beach, museum, park…

Same four answers, same rules: optional, never averaged, always the author's own call.

Writing a report

Write your trip report as free text — the way you would tell it to a friend. We turn it into a structured report (destination, dates, budget, verdict) and you check every field before publishing. Nothing is added to your story; it stays your words.

Mention places by their name — the hotel, the restaurant, the beach. After you publish, we find them in your story and list them in a “Places from this trip” section on your report, each with its own question for you: would you stay, eat, or visit here again? One tap to answer, always optional.

Tracked your trip on Polarsteps? Import it — your days and photos become a private draft, in your own words, and you only add who went and your verdict before publishing.

Every report goes through a quick automatic check before it becomes visible to others.

Questions

Planning a trip? Ask a question with your situation — who you travel with, when, your budget. Travellers who published a report for that destination are notified that someone is asking about a place they have been. Answers come from people who were there, and we also surface passages from existing reports that may already answer you — always quoted word for word, never rewritten.

Verification

A “Trip verified” badge means we found evidence that the trip really happened. There are three ways:

• A photo: if one of your photos was taken at the destination around your travel dates, the trip is verified automatically. Our server reads the photo's location data from the original, never writes the coordinates anywhere, and keeps only “it matched”.
• A travel document: any document from the trip that shows the location and a date — a booking confirmation, a boarding pass, a restaurant bill, a museum ticket. We check that they match your trip, then delete the document. If the automatic check can't decide, a human reviews it — and then it is deleted too.
• Tracked location history: if you import a trip from Polarsteps that was live-tracked, the tracked locations are checked against the destination and dates during the import — and the report is verified on the spot. The location history itself is never stored — we keep only “it matched”. Already imported a trip before this existed? Paste a fresh export and pick the same trip — it gets checked then.

The badge always says exactly what was checked — never a vague “trusted user”. And there is no penalty for not verifying: an unverified report is simply unverified, nothing more.

What we don't keep

Verification works on things we throw away:

• Proof documents are deleted after review — 14 days from upload at the latest — we keep only the matched place and dates, never names, prices, or booking numbers.
• Photo location data (EXIF) is removed from the published photo, and the coordinates are never written down — not to a database field, not to a log — even when the original is used to check a trip. We keep only the town it matched, and the original is deleted after the check, 14 days at the latest.
• Your Polarsteps export is never copied — our server reads only the bytes it needs straight from Polarsteps, the download link is never saved, and the only thing kept is the draft it creates for you.
• Tracked location history is checked in memory and never stored — we keep only “it matched”.

The full details are in the Privacy Policy.

Common questions

Do I need an account to read?

No. Every report, question, and answer is open to everyone. You only need an account to publish or to ask a question.

How do I sign in?

No passwords. We email you a sign-in link — click it and you are in.

Is verification required?

No. Unverified reports are just as welcome. Verification adds a badge; skipping it has no penalty.

What happens to my proof document?

It is checked, then deleted — usually within minutes. If a human needs to look at it, it is deleted right after that review, and after 14 days at the latest. We keep only the matched place and dates, never names, prices, or booking numbers.

What about my photos?

Photos carry information about where and when they were taken (called EXIF). We remove it before the photo is published — the version everyone sees carries none of it. When a photo does have a location and a date, the original goes to a private space for the automatic check and is deleted after it — 14 days at the very latest. No one is shown it: a photo original never reaches our review queue. The coordinates themselves are never written down — we keep only the town it matched.

Do I have to use my real name?

No. We do not ask for your real name and we do not care about it — just tell us what other travellers should call you. You can also pick a username, which becomes the address of your public profile page.

I have a travel blog or YouTube channel. Can I link them?

Yes. Add your website in your profile — it shows on your public profile page once you have published at least one report. And each trip report can embed one YouTube video of the trip — as long as it is your own video, filmed by you on that trip, not someone else’s.

Are these reports AI-written?

No. Reports are written by travellers about their own trips.

Do you remove negative reviews?

Never for being negative. Honest "I would not go back" reports are the reason this site exists. We only remove content that breaks the rules (spam, fake reports, illegal content).

How do I delete my content?

You can delete or unpublish any of your reports from the report page. To delete your whole account, write to hello@backfrommytrip.com for now.