Editorial standards

Ownership + independence

destination.com is owned and operated by PGAM Media, a US-based publisher. We hold the domain outright, take no external editorial direction from advertisers or affiliate partners, and disclose sponsored placements inline when they occur (see below).

Bylines + masthead

Every guide is published under the destination.com editorial byline — a single collective masthead rather than individual writer credits. The editorial team is a mix of full-time editors and commissioned freelance contributors; the collective byline reflects the fact that every piece is researched, edited, fact-checked, and dated by the newsroom as a whole rather than any individual writer.

This is the model The Economist, Wirecutter, and several in-flight magazines use. It puts the editorial process — not the personal brand of one writer — at the front of the work.

Sourcing

Every claim in a destination.com guide comes from one of:

• First-person reporting — an editor or commissioned contributor visits the location, eats at the restaurants, walks the routes.
• Named on-the-ground contacts — chefs, innkeepers, local guides quoted with permission.
• Verifiable public data — official tourism boards, transit schedules, museum opening hours, government travel advisories, all linked in the source list at the end of each guide.
• Reputable secondary sources — established travel publications, historical archives, cited academic work. Always with attribution.

We do not publish rumors, unattributed claims, or hearsay. Where we're uncertain, we say so on the page.

Fact-checking + dating

Every guide is fact-checked against its source list before publication. Perishable claims — prices, schedules, opening hours, seasonality — carry a Verified date on the page, visible in the guide header. When conditions change we update the guide in-place and bump the verification date rather than quietly editing.

AI use

destination.com uses AI tools — including large language models — as part of the research and drafting workflow. AI helps the editorial team assemble background research, draft initial scaffolding for guides, and check consistency across the archive.

Every published guide is reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a human editor before publication. AI-generated text that hasn't been edited is never shipped as final copy. We treat AI as a research assistant, not a writer.

Where a guide is meaningfully AI-informed (for example, an itinerary optimizer or a flight-intelligence page powered by an AI reasoning layer), the AI role is disclosed on the page itself.

Affiliate + advertising

destination.com earns commissions when readers book flights, hotels, activities, or packages through partners including Expedia, Booking.com, Viator, and a handful of others. Those commissions never change editorial recommendations, and every affiliate placement is visibly labelled on the page.

Display advertising appears on most guides and is served through transparent SSP relationships. Advertisers have no visibility into editorial workflow and no say in what we publish.

Corrections

When we get something wrong — a wrong opening hour, a misattributed quote, a closed restaurant we didn't catch — we fix it on the page and add a corrections log entry describing what changed and when. Material errors carry a corrections note directly in the guide.

Have you spotted something wrong? Email the editors and we'll investigate.

What we don't cover

destination.com stays inside travel — destinations, neighborhoods, food, itineraries, transit, seasonality. We do not publish political commentary, medical advice, financial guidance, or content outside the travel editorial lane, even when it's topical.