Last updated 4 September 2026
This policy explains what victoriavanderberg.com collects, why, and what you can do about it. It is written in plain language rather than legal boilerplate, and it describes what this site actually does.
The short version
This is a travel blog. It does not sell anything directly and it does not sell your data to anyone. It collects three things: anonymous statistics about which pages people read, an email address if you choose to give one, and whatever you type into a comment or a contact form. Affiliate partners set their own cookies when you click through to them.
Statistics
The site uses Google Analytics 4, added through the MonsterInsights plugin, and Jetpack Stats. Both record which pages are visited, roughly where in the world the visitor is, which site or search engine sent them, and what kind of device they used. IP addresses are anonymised before Google stores them.
This is used to see which guides people read and which they ignore. It is not used to identify anyone individually, and it is not linked to your name or email.
The mailing list
If you enter your email address to receive the newsletter, that address is stored with the email provider used to send it, along with the date you subscribed and whether you have opened previous emails.
Signup is double opt in, which means you receive a confirmation email and are not added until you click the link in it. This exists so that nobody can add you without your knowledge.
Every email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Unsubscribing removes you from future sends. If you would rather be deleted entirely rather than simply unsubscribed, ask and it will be done.
Comments and contact forms
If you leave a comment, the site stores the name and email you enter, your comment, and your IP address. The IP is recorded because it is how spam filtering works. Comment authors’ email addresses are never published and never added to the mailing list.
If you use the contact form, whatever you send arrives as an email and is kept only as long as it is useful to answer you.
Cookies
A few different things set cookies here.
The site itself sets a cookie only if you leave a comment and ask it to remember your details, and short lived technical cookies used by the caching system to serve pages quickly.
Analytics sets cookies to tell a returning visitor from a new one.
Affiliate partners set cookies when you click one of the booking or tour links. That cookie is how a partner knows the booking came from this site. It is set by them, on their domain, under their own privacy policy, and this site cannot read it.
Embedded content from Instagram, Facebook and X appears on some pages. Those embeds behave exactly as if you had visited those sites directly, and they may set their own cookies and collect their own data. The same is true of any video player embedded in a post.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. The site works without them, though comments will not remember you.
Affiliate links
Some links on this site are affiliate links, meaning a commission may be earned if you book through them, at no extra cost to you. The partners currently used are GetYourGuide, Travelpayouts and its partner programmes including Tiqets and Airalo, and Booking.com.
Affiliate links are marked, and each page carrying them shows a disclosure. Fuller detail is on the disclosure page.
Outbound affiliate links pass through a redirect on this domain, at addresses beginning /go/. That redirect counts how many times each link is clicked in total. It records a number, not a visitor. No personal information is stored by it.
Hosting, caching and images
The site is hosted by Hostinger. Pages and images are served through a content delivery network, which means the file may physically reach you from a server closer to you than the main one. Server logs are kept by the host in the ordinary way for security and troubleshooting.
How long things are kept
Analytics data is retained on Google’s default schedule. Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe or ask to be deleted. Comments stay with the post they were left on unless you ask for one to be removed. Contact form messages are deleted once they have been dealt with.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask what is held about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted. If you are in the UK or the European Union, the GDPR gives you those rights explicitly, along with the right to object to processing and to complain to your national data protection authority.
To make any of those requests, use the contact page. Requests are answered as quickly as possible and always within a month.
Children
This site is not intended for children under 13 and does not knowingly collect information from them.
About the content
This site is an editorial project. Some scenes, captions and narrative details are artistically interpreted, as set out on the disclosure page. That has no bearing on how your data is handled, which is described accurately above.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes will be noted on the page rather than made quietly.
