Privacy Policy
Last updated: 15.09.2026
Who we are
Around Europe is a travel blog published at aroundeurope.blog.
We are the controller for the personal data described below. If you have a question about any of it, email us at [email protected] — we read everything ourselves.
The short version
We’re a small blog. We don’t sell data, we don’t run an ad network, and we don’t build profiles of our readers. Our hosting keeps standard server logs, we use Google Analytics only if you agree to it, and we know your email address only if you’ve given it to us for our list or for trip planning.
The rest of this page is the detail.
When you read the blog
Our host, Hostinger, keeps standard server logs when a page is requested. These record the IP address, the browser and operating system, the page requested, the referring page, and the time. Our site also runs behind Cloudflare, which provides caching and security filtering and processes the same connection data in the course of doing so.
We rely on our legitimate interest in running a secure, working website for this (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We don’t use these logs to identify individual readers, and they’re deleted automatically after a short period — normally no more than 30 days.
Cloudflare is based in the United States and is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
Cookies and analytics
Cookies that are needed for the site to work are set without asking, because the site doesn’t function without them.
Everything else is opt-in. When you first visit, a banner from CookieYes asks what you want to allow. CookieYes stores a record of your choice, including your IP address, so that we can show that consent was given and so we don’t have to ask you again on every page.
If you agree to analytics, we use Google Analytics to see roughly how many people read which posts and where they arrived from. We use this to decide what to write next. Google Analytics is provided by Google Ireland Limited, with data also processed by Google LLC in the United States, which is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. Analytics data is retained for 14 months.
The legal basis for analytics and for any other non-essential cookies is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, §25(1) TDDDG). You can change or withdraw that consent at any time through the cookie settings link at the bottom of every page. Withdrawing it doesn’t affect anything that happened before.
Our email list
There are a few places on this site where you can give us your email address: a sign-up form inside a post, or a free download such as our Lapland guides. What we’ve promised to send you is written on the form you used, and that’s what you’ll get.
If you signed up in order to receive a download, we send you the file and you also join our list, which means occasional emails about new guides, destination news, and things worth knowing before you travel. The form tells you this before you enter anything, and you can leave at any time.
We collect your email address. We also record the IP address and time of your sign-up and of your confirmation, which is how we can demonstrate that you asked to be on the list.
We use double opt-in: after you submit the form, we send one email asking you to confirm. If you don’t click, you’re not added, and we delete the incomplete sign-up.
The list is run on Kit (Kit.com, formerly ConvertKit), based in the United States. Kit is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and we have a data processing agreement with them that incorporates the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. Kit records whether emails are opened and whether links are clicked, which tells us whether what we send is any use.
The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). You can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the bottom of every email, or by emailing us. We keep your address until you unsubscribe, after which we delete it, apart from a minimal record that you asked to be removed.
Trip planning
We offer a paid trip planning service. It works in two stages.
When you enquire. You fill in a form telling us about the trip — how many adults are coming and the ages of any children, when you’re going, where you want to go, how long for, and what would spoil it for you. We use this to work out whether we can plan the trip well and what it would cost. Nothing is charged at this stage and you’re not committing to anything.
The form runs on Tally, based in Belgium, which stores the responses for us. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR, which covers steps taken at your request before a contract is entered into. If you don’t go ahead, we delete the enquiry within six months.
If you book. Payment is processed by Stripe. We receive your name, email address, billing country and a record of the transaction. We never receive or store your card details. Stripe processes payments for us through Stripe Payments Europe, Limited in Ireland, with data also processed by Stripe, Inc. in the United States. Stripe is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and Stripe’s data processing agreement also incorporates the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
Stripe is separately processing data as its own controller for fraud prevention and regulatory compliance, under its own privacy policy.
After payment we send a second form asking for the detail that makes a plan good — how fast you like to travel, what you want to eat, where you want to stay, what you’d hate to miss, and roughly what you want to spend. That form also runs on Tally.
The legal basis for everything after booking is performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). We delete the planning correspondence once it’s clear you don’t need anything further, generally within twelve months, except where German tax and commercial law requires us to keep records of the transaction for longer — up to ten years.
Children’s ages. If you’re travelling with children we ask how old they’ll be, because a three-year-old and a ten-year-old need completely different days. We don’t ask for their names and we collect nothing else about them. We’re asking you, not them.
Affiliate links
Some links on this site are affiliate links. Most run through Stay22, which handles our accommodation and activity links including Booking.com and GetYourGuide; the rest go through DiscoverCars and Travelpayouts. If you book something after clicking one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We only link to things we’d recommend anyway, and we say so in the post.
When you click, the destination site sets its own cookie to record that you came from us. That happens on their site under their privacy policy, not ours. We receive commission reports telling us a booking was made — we don’t see who made it.
Embedded content and Pinterest
A few posts include content loaded from other sites, such as accommodation maps from Stay22. Our images also carry a Pinterest save button so you can pin them directly.
In both cases the provider’s code runs on our page, which means it receives your IP address and can set its own cookies, exactly as if you had visited their site. For Pinterest that’s Pinterest Europe Ltd in Dublin, with data also processed by Pinterest Inc. in the United States.
Neither loads until you’ve agreed in the cookie banner.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you can ask us to:
- tell you what data we hold about you and give you a copy (Art. 15)
- correct anything that’s wrong (Art. 16)
- delete your data (Art. 17)
- restrict what we do with it (Art. 18)
- hand it over in a portable format (Art. 20)
- stop processing based on legitimate interest (Art. 21)
Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting what we did before you withdrew it (Art. 7(3)).
Email us and we’ll deal with it. If you think we’ve handled your data badly, you can complain to a supervisory authority. Ours is the Bayerisches Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht, Promenade 18, 91522 Ansbach.
Children
This site isn’t aimed at children and we don’t knowingly collect data from anyone under 16. The one exception is the ages of children travelling with you, which you give us yourself when you ask us to plan a family trip — see Trip planning above. If you believe a child has given us their own details, email us and we’ll delete them.
Changes
If we start using something new, we’ll update this page and change the date at the top.