Privacy

What we collect and why

Newsletter. If you subscribe to The Spike, we store your email address, the time you subscribed, the page you subscribed from, and a hashed (one-way, not reversible) version of your IP address used only to limit abuse. We use double opt-in: nothing is sent until you confirm. Every email has an unsubscribe link that works immediately.

Contact form. When you write to us we store your name, email, organisation if you give one, the page you mention and your message, so we can reply and keep a record of corrections.

Outbound partner clicks. When you click a labelled partner link we record the partner, the link, the page you were on, the referring page and, where the hosting platform provides it, your country. We do not record your IP address with the click. We use this to understand which recommendations readers act on.

Your trip shortlist. "Save to my trip" stores destination slugs in your browser's local storage. It never leaves your device.

Analytics. If we enable analytics, we use a privacy-focused service without cross-site tracking and say so here. At the time of writing, no analytics or advertising cookies are set.

What we do not do

We do not sell or rent personal data. We do not use advertising trackers on the site. We do not buy data about you from anyone.

Third parties

Partner sites you click through to have their own privacy policies and may set their own cookies once you arrive there. If display advertising is enabled, the network that serves it will publish its own notice, which we will link from this page.

Our newsletter and transactional email may be delivered by a third-party email provider acting on our instructions.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email hello@spiketravel.com from the address in question, or use the contact page. We answer within 30 days, usually much sooner. If you are in the EU, UK or California, the rights under GDPR, UK GDPR and CCPA apply and we honour them.

Children

Spike Travel is written for adults planning travel. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will update the date above and, for newsletter subscribers, mention it in the next issue.