At Travel Lemming, we are committed to providing our readers with helpful, accurate, and trustworthy travel guides. We have extensive editorial guidelines all writers are required to adhere to, and all content goes through multiple levels of editorial review.
At Travel Lemming, we have a guiding principle we call “the Travel Lemming friends and family test.” Put simply, this means we only publish travel guides that we would give to our own friends and family to use (and, in fact, we often do exactly that).
If it’s not good enough for our personal friends and family, it’s not good enough for our readers, period.
Editorial Independence & Content Integrity
Travel Lemming values editorial independence and content integrity.
Our readers always come first.
Making travel recommendations is an inherently subjective exercise, and we know that our readers come to us for our creators’ honest and frank opinions. Our creators are encouraged to express themselves as they see fit, within our content guidelines. While we implement strict editorial control over factual statements (see below), our creators are given significant creative license and independence when it comes to stating their honest opinions.
To ensure we are providing high quality recommendations, Travel Lemming only commissions content from creators who known a destination well. To write a guide on Travel Lemming, a creator must identify themselves as either a local or an expert in a destination. Here is how we define that:
- Local Writers – A local creator resides at the destination, grew up there, or spends a substantial portion of their year at the destination. Most of our creators are only “local” for a single destination, but we do have team members who move between places and identify as local in more than one destination.
- Expert Writers – An expert creator has substantial familiarity with a destination, sufficient to provide high quality recommendations that would pass the aforementioned “Travel Lemming friends and family test.” Usually this is achieved by having spent extensive time in a destination or by having visited a destination multiple times.
Our creators are always instructed to be upfront and honest about their qualifications for a particular destination.
Furthermore, we have implemented the following policies to ensure accountability to our readership:
- No AI Content – Travel Lemming is written by humans, for humans. All Travel Lemming contracts strictly forbid the submission of AI-generated content, and our editorial team takes steps to check and enforce this policy. Should our AI content policy change in the future, we commit to prominently disclosing any content created by AI.
- No Pen Names – We are accountable to our readers. All of our creators write under their own, real names.
Fact Checking & Accuracy
Travel Lemming’s commitment to the truth runs deep. Travel Lemming’s founder Nate Hake even started his career in media two decades ago as one of the first Research Interns at FactCheck.org, one of the pre-eminent fact-checking organizations in the United States.
Every article we publish goes through multiple layers of editorial review and is fact-checked. We always seek to confirm factual assertions and details against trusted third party sources. Depending upon this context, this may include cross-checking official government sources, independent media sources, the entity’s own website and Google profile, and reputable third party databases and resources. Like any media organization, we are not perfect, but we do strive for perfection and are quick to correct errors when found.
Corrections
If you believe we have made a factual assertion that requires a correction, please contact us at contact@travellemming.com. Please include the url of the page you believe needs a correction and indicate the specific part of the page with the assertion in question, as well as any evidence you can provide in support of the proposed correction. Please note that often our articles include both factual assertions and editorial opinions, and that changes to the latter are at the sole discretion of the writer.
Content Updates
Keeping a travel guide library up to date is a challenging endeavor. Attractions and businesses close and open, hours and management change, and customer experience can improve or degrade over time.
To ensure our readers have the best experience possible, we seek to frequently update our travel guides. Our writers are encouraged and incentivized to update old guides, and our editorial team re-reviews content on an ongoing basis. Our most popular guides are updated as frequently as every month, and our entire library of recommendations are editorially reviewed at least twice a year to ensure our information is accurate and up to date.
Product Vetting
Occasionally Travel Lemming publishes articles reviewing or ranking products, such as travel luggage. All products we review and recommend are thoroughly vetted by our review team. We only agree to review products that come from reputable brands, and we always vet products against user reviews before deciding to proceed with a review article.
Travel Lemming only reviews products that our team has actually touched and used. We always seek to “show our work” by demonstrating in the article exactly how we tested the product, including via original photos and videos wherever practical.
In most cases review samples are purchased with Travel Lemming’s funds, or sourced from products the writer already owns. On occasion, we will accept review samples from brands. When we accept a review sample, this is disclosed at the top of the review page.
Feedback
We are constantly seeking to improve how we serve our readers. To give feedback on Travel Lemming’s editorial process, or anything else, visit our Contact Page or email contact@travellemming.com.