Privacy Policy

The short version

I don’t sell anything and don’t use affiliate links on this site. This site does participate in the Google AdSense advertising program, and I use Google Analytics to see which guides get read. Both use cookies. The only details you hand over directly are the ones you type into a comment. Everything else below is detail.

Advertising (Google AdSense)

This site is enrolled in Google AdSense, so pages may show ads served by Google and its advertising partners. Serving those ads involves third-party vendors, including Google, using cookies to serve ads based on someone’s prior visits to this site or other sites on the internet. Google’s use of advertising cookies lets it and its partners serve ads based on someone’s visit to this site and/or other sites on the internet.

You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google’s Ad Settings, or opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies for personalised advertising by visiting www.aboutads.info. None of this changes what you can read here — ads or no ads, every guide is fully visible.

No affiliate links. Outside of AdSense advertising, nothing on this site is a paid or sponsored placement. If a guide recommends a route, a ticket or a shop, nothing is paid for that recommendation.

Google Analytics

Every page on this site loads a Google tag. It reports your visit to Google Analytics, which is how I see that a guide was read at all — page views, which site sent you here, roughly which country you are in, and whether you are on a phone or a laptop.

To do that, Google receives your IP address and sets cookies or similar identifiers in your browser. I see the reports in aggregate; I do not look up individual visitors, and the reports are not tied to a name. Google’s own handling is described in Google’s Privacy Policy, and you can opt out of Analytics entirely with Google’s browser add-on.

Server logs

Like every website, this one sits on a server that records requests: IP address, the page requested, the time, your browser’s user-agent string, and the referring page. These logs exist to keep the site running and to investigate abuse. They are held by the hosting provider under its own retention schedule and are not used to build any profile of you.

Comments

Comments are open on the guides. Leaving one requires a name and an email address; a website address is optional. WordPress stores your comment together with your IP address and browser user-agent string. The email address is never published.

Avatars are shown next to comments through Gravatar, a service run by Automattic. To find your picture, a one-way hash of your email address is sent to Gravatar. If you have no Gravatar account, a generated image is shown instead. Gravatar’s handling is covered by Automattic’s Privacy Policy.

The comment form offers a tickbox to save your name, email and website in cookies on your own device, so you don’t retype them next time. It is optional and it is off unless you tick it. Comments are moderated by hand — no third-party spam-filtering service processes them.

Cookies

Three things set cookies here: Google AdSense (to serve and measure ads, as described above), Google Analytics, and WordPress itself if you tick the box to remember your comment details. There is no cookie wall. Blocking or deleting cookies in your browser is enough to read every guide on this site; only the comment convenience breaks, and ads may become less relevant to you rather than disappearing.

Content from other sites

Where a guide embeds something from elsewhere — a video, a map — your browser contacts that provider directly, and they can see the request exactly as if you had visited their site. Their privacy policy applies to that, not this one.

The same goes for the outbound links in every guide. Most of them point to Korean government agencies and official booking systems, each of which has its own policy.

Your choices

• Opt out of personalised ads. Use Google’s Ad Settings or aboutads.info.
• Opt out of Analytics. Use Google’s browser add-on linked above, or block the tag with any content blocker. Nothing on the site stops working.
• Delete a comment. Ask through the contact page and I will remove it, including the stored email address and IP.
• See what is held about you. Ask, and I will tell you what this site’s database holds. Requests about data held by Google, or in the hosting provider’s server logs, have to go to them.
• Browse without cookies. Blocking them is enough to read the guides.

Children

This site is not aimed at children under 13, and I do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has left a comment here, tell me and I will delete it.

Changes to this page

If what this site collects changes — a mailing list, an affiliate arrangement, a different analytics or advertising tool — this page is updated before that change goes live, and the date at the top moves with it.

Questions about any of this go through the contact page.

This is a plain-language description of how a personal blog handles data. It is not legal advice, and it does not limit any rights you have under the law where you live.