Terms of Service.

Who we are.

Monthly Travel Guide (the "Site") publishes travel writing, photography, itineraries, and digital products at monthlytravelguide.com. References in these Terms to "we," "us," and "our" refer to Monthly Travel Guide. References to "you" or "your" refer to any person who visits, reads, comments on, or purchases from the Site.

Editorial direction sits with Patrick Smith, Founder and Editor-in-Chief.

By accessing or using the Site, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Site.

Permitted and prohibited uses.

You may:

• Read all public articles and view all public images on the Site.
• Share links to our pages on any platform.
• Quote up to 100 words from any article, with clear attribution and a working link to the original.
• Save pages for personal offline reading and print pages for non-commercial personal use.

You may not:

• Republish our articles, in whole or in substantial part, on any other website, application, or medium.
• Use our photography, illustrations, maps, or downloadable assets without our prior written permission.
• Scrape, crawl, mirror, or index the Site programmatically beyond what is permitted by our robots.txt file.
• Use our content — including articles, images, and downloadable products — to train, fine-tune, or otherwise develop artificial intelligence systems, machine-learning models, or large language models.
• Post comments, contact-form submissions, or pitches that are abusive, defamatory, deceptive, unlawful, or designed to spam.
• Attempt to interfere with, compromise, reverse-engineer, or circumvent any security feature of the Site.
• Use the Site, or any content obtained from the Site, in a manner that infringes upon any third party's intellectual property, privacy, or other rights.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate access to the Site, at our sole discretion and without notice, for any person we reasonably believe to be in violation of these Terms.

Intellectual property.

All content published on monthlytravelguide.com — including, without limitation, articles, photography, illustrations, maps, video, audio, downloadable products, and the underlying source code, layout, and design — is the intellectual property of Monthly Travel Guide and is protected by United States and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws, except where another creator is explicitly credited.

Specifically:

• Articles and editorial content are authored by Patrick Smith and by any contributors named in the byline.
• Photography is taken by Patrick Smith, taken by named contributors, or licensed from named sources.
• The Emergency Vault, When To Go, The AI Command Center, and the five Library bundles are the original creative work of Monthly Travel Guide.

Except for the limited rights granted in Section 02, you may not reproduce, distribute, publicly display, modify, sell, sublicense, or create derivative works from any Site content without our prior written consent. Fair use, fair dealing, and similar statutory exceptions are reserved to you under applicable law.

If you believe content on the Site infringes your copyright, send a notice including (a) identification of the copyrighted work, (b) the URL where the alleged infringement appears, (c) your contact information, and (d) a good-faith statement that the use is not authorized, to contact@monthlytravelguide.com.

Digital products: terms of sale.

The following terms apply to any purchase of a digital product from Monthly Travel Guide, including The Emergency Vault, When To Go, The AI Command Center, and any bundle from the Library (the Month-by-Month Travel Calendar, the Itinerary Library, the Packing System, the Solo Traveler's Toolkit, and the Year-Round Travel Library).

Delivery

Digital products are delivered electronically through Payhip, our checkout and delivery provider, immediately upon successful payment. You receive download access at the time of purchase. Payhip's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy also apply to your transaction.

License granted

On purchase, you are granted a personal, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, non-commercial license to download, store, and use the purchased product for your own use only. You may print one copy for personal reference.

You may not share, resell, redistribute, lend, upload to any file-sharing or cloud service accessible to others, post excerpts publicly, or use the contents of any digital product to develop, fine-tune, or operate a competing product or service.

All sales are final

Technical assistance

If you experience a genuine technical issue — for example, the download link does not work, the file is corrupted, or you did not receive your order confirmation — email contact@monthlytravelguide.com within seven (7) days of purchase, including your order reference and the email address used at checkout. We will work to resolve the issue, typically by resending or repairing the file. This is the only circumstance in which we will assist with a digital product transaction after delivery.

Chargebacks

Initiating a payment dispute or chargeback through your bank or card issuer without first contacting us, where you have received the product, constitutes a breach of these Terms. We reserve the right to challenge any such chargeback with evidence of delivery and to suspend any future access by the disputing party.

Affiliate links and booking referrals.

Monthly Travel Guide participates in several third-party affiliate and referral programs, which may include, without limitation:

• Booking.com Affiliate Program and Stay22 — accommodation referrals.
• Amazon Associates Program — gear, books, and travel essentials.
• SafetyWing and Heymondo — travel insurance.
• Airalo — eSIMs and mobile connectivity.
• GetYourGuide, Viator, and Klook — tours and activities.

When you click an affiliate link on the Site and subsequently complete a purchase or booking with the third-party merchant, we may receive a commission from that merchant. Your price does not change as a result. The commission is paid by the merchant, not by you.

We do not accept payment from any company, tourism board, hotel, airline, or operator in exchange for editorial coverage. We do not publish sponsored articles or paid placements. If we ever publish content based on a press trip, comped stay, or sample product, that fact will be disclosed at the top of the article, in bold, before the body content begins.

Travel information disclaimer.

Travel writing decays. Borders close. Visa rules change. Hotels rebrand and shut down. Restaurants we loved last year are gone. Currencies fluctuate. Weather patterns shift. We make commercially reasonable efforts to refresh our content and remove material that becomes outdated, but no travel publication can guarantee real-time accuracy on every detail of every destination at every moment.

You are responsible for verifying, before you travel:

• Visa and entry requirements with the official embassy or consulate of your destination country.
• Vaccination requirements and health advisories with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), or your country's equivalent authority.
• Flight schedules with the operating airline directly.
• Hotel availability, current rates, taxes, and cancellation policies with the relevant booking platform at the time of reservation.
• Travel advisories and safety conditions with the U.S. Department of State or your country's foreign-affairs ministry.

Monthly Travel Guide provides editorial guidance. We are not a travel agent, tour operator, or licensed reseller of travel services. We do not book trips on your behalf and we take no responsibility for any reservation made through links on the Site. All decisions about where, when, and how to travel — and any risks associated with any trip — are your own.

User-submitted content.

If you submit a comment, story, photograph, destination tip, pitch, or any other content to the Site (whether through a comment field, contact form, email, or other channel), you grant Monthly Travel Guide a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, display, publish, distribute, and create derivative works from that content on the Site, in our newsletter, and in our associated marketing materials, with attribution where appropriate.

You retain ownership of your submission. We do not claim ownership of user submissions.

By submitting content, you represent and warrant that:

• The content is your own original work, or you have all necessary rights and permissions to grant the license above.
• The content does not infringe any third party's copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights.
• The content is not defamatory, threatening, harassing, obscene, fraudulent, or otherwise unlawful.

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to edit, decline to publish, or remove any user-submitted content at any time, without notice or explanation.

Disclaimers and limitation of liability.

The Site, all editorial content, photography, downloadable products, tools, and any other materials provided through monthlytravelguide.com are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including (without limitation) implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, non-infringement, or uninterrupted availability.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law:

• Monthly Travel Guide, its operators, contributors, and partners will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages — including, without limitation, damages for lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, loss of goodwill, or business interruption — arising from or related to your use of the Site, our content, or our digital products, whether based in contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability, or any other legal theory, and whether or not we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
• We will not be liable for any decision you make in reliance on information published on the Site, including (without limitation) decisions concerning travel, accommodation, transportation, financial commitments, vaccinations, or any other matter.
• Our aggregate cumulative liability to you for any and all claims arising from or related to these Terms, your use of the Site, or any digital product purchased from us will not exceed the greater of: (a) the total amount you have paid Monthly Travel Guide in the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred United States dollars ($100 USD).

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes any liability that cannot legally be limited or excluded under applicable law, including liability for fraud, gross negligence, or willful misconduct.

Indemnification.

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Monthly Travel Guide, its operators, contributors, affiliates, and partners from and against any and all claims, demands, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, and expenses — including reasonable attorneys' fees — arising from or related to:

• Your breach of these Terms.
• Your use or misuse of the Site, our content, or our digital products.
• Any content you submit to or through the Site.
• Your violation of any third-party right, including intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or contractual rights.
• Any decision you make, or action you take, in reliance on information published on the Site.

We reserve the right, at our own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which case you agree to cooperate with our defense.

Changes to these Terms.

We may update these Terms from time to time, including in response to changes in applicable law, business practices, or the products and services we offer. When we do:

• The "Last updated" date at the top of this page will be revised.
• Material changes will be flagged on the Site (for example, through a homepage banner or newsletter notice) for at least fourteen (14) days following the change.
• Your continued use of the Site after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

If you do not agree to a future revision, your sole remedy is to discontinue using the Site and to request deletion of any personal data we hold about you. See our Privacy Policy for details.

Governing law and dispute resolution.

These Terms, and any dispute or claim (including non-contractual disputes or claims) arising out of or in connection with them, your use of the Site, or any digital product purchased from us, are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws applicable to Monthly Travel Guide, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

Any dispute that cannot be resolved informally will be submitted exclusively to the courts of competent jurisdiction in which Monthly Travel Guide is operated. By using the Site, you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

You agree that any claim arising from these Terms must be brought in your individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, or representative action.

If any provision of these Terms is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

Contact.

For any question concerning these Terms — including copyright matters, technical issues with a digital product, or general legal inquiries:

Email: contact@monthlytravelguide.com

We aim to respond within three business days. During periods of travel, replies may take longer.