Privacy Policy

Legal

Last updated: October 2026 · Applies to travelescape.in

Plain English first. Full detail below. We collect very little. We pass it only to the few services that run the site, each named below. We do not sell your data. Ever.

Our Promise

No ads. No cookies. Nothing follows you. The privacy-first search engines showed that you don't need to know who someone is to give them a good page. Travelescape works the same way.

Nothing follows you. No ad networks, no Facebook Pixel, no Google Ads tags, no cross-site trackers. Our page counts use no cookie and store nothing in your browser: a visit is counted, but never recognised as yours the next time.
What you type stays yours. Search runs right here in your browser. What you type into Search or Ask is not kept, and it is taken out of our page counts. Ask sends your question to Anthropic so it can write the answer; we keep only how many questions were asked, and a question's words only if you press "Send this question to our writers".
Every reader gets the same page. No accounts, no profiles, nothing personalised, nothing for sale.
Nothing loads from elsewhere until you ask. Our fonts, photos and scripts come from travelescape.in. The one exception is PostHog, our page counter, in the EU. A YouTube video loads nothing from YouTube until you press play.
You can wipe us from your device. The button at the end of this page clears everything your browser keeps for this site.

Check it yourself

You don't have to take our word for it.

Run any of our pages through Blacklight, The Markup's free privacy inspector. It lists every tracker and cookie a site loads.
Open your browser's developer tools on any of our pages. Under Storage you will find no cookies, and under Network, requests only to travelescape.in and to PostHog's EU servers.
Every page carries a Content Security Policy: a rule your own browser enforces, which lets our pages run scripts only from travelescape.in and PostHog. Anything else, your browser blocks.

What we can't promise

Once you press play on a video, YouTube sees your visit as it would on its own site.
A link takes you to another site, with its own rules. It learns that you came from travelescape.in, but not from which page.
The essay emails are sent by Kit, which counts whether an email was opened and which links in it were clicked.
Our host, Vercel, keeps short-lived request logs, as every host does.

At a Glance

What we collect

No accounts. Anonymous page-view statistics; your email address and note if you write to us; your name, email and comment if you comment on a post or reply in a community discussion (the name, your city if you give it, and the comment are published after review; the email never is); your email address if you join the essay list; the stars you give if you rate a post (no name, no email, no cookie); the question you type into Ask, which goes to Anthropic to write the answer and is not kept by us. If you are a guest writer we have invited, the details you give when you sign the Contributor Agreement. If you are in our group and agree to share community notes, the name you want shown, your city and (if you agree on the site) your email address; your notes and photos are published with that name after a person reads them. If Nilabh invites you to a Coffee with Nilabh interview, your answers and photos, which an AI (Anthropic's Claude) uses to ask the questions and write up your story, kept 90 days at most.

What we never do

Sell your data. Share it with advertisers. Build profiles. Send spam. Use invasive tracking. Ask you for a password, an OTP, card details or money: a message that does, in our name, is a scam (Terms, section 14). This is a small editorial site, not an ad business. How it is paid is in our Disclosure.

Your control

You can request your data, correct it, or ask us to delete it at any time. Email us: nilabh@travelescape.in

No surveillance

We use privacy-respecting analytics only, and they count page views, not clicks (one exception: how many tap "Join on WhatsApp" each month). No Facebook Pixel. No Google Ads tracking. No cross-site tracking cookies. No session recording. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.

Who We Are

Travelescape is an independent travel journal based in India, owned and run by one person, Nilabh Ranjan, in Bangalore. Write to nilabh@travelescape.in.

There is no data team, no marketing department and no advertising business behind it. When you write with a data request, Nilabh reads it.

What Information We Collect

All of Travelescape can be read freely without providing any personal information. The site has no accounts and no login. It has six forms: "Stay in touch", which sends us a note; the comment form under each post; the reply form in community discussions; the essay list sign-up; the star rating at the end of each post; and the Coffee with Nilabh waiting list. A seventh, the Contributor Agreement, opens only with a link we email to a writer we have invited; an eighth, at travelescape.in/share-with-te/, is for members of our group who agree to share community notes; a ninth, the Coffee with Nilabh interview, opens only with a personal link Nilabh sends you.

We only collect information in the following specific cases:

When you visit: the pages you read (never what you type into Search or Ask), the page that sent you here, your browser and device type, and an approximate location worked out from your IP address. Only page views are counted: not your clicks, your scrolling or how long you stay. Why: to understand which writing people read. If you land on a page that does not exist, we count the missing address and where the link came from (a search engine's or a website's name, or our own page that linked to it), never anything about you; so that one visitor cannot flood the count, a one-way code made from your IP address is kept for a day. Why: to mend broken links. If you tap "Join on WhatsApp" on the Community page, we add one to that month's count, never anything about you; so that one visitor counts once a day, a one-way code made from your IP address is kept for a day. Why: to know how many readers head for the group.
When you write to us (by email or through the Stay in touch form): your email address, your name if you give it, whatever you put in your message, and, from the form, the page you wrote from. Why: to reply to you.
When you ask for a Coffee with Nilabh (at travelescape.in/coffee-with-nilabh/): your name, your WhatsApp number or email address (or both), and where you went, if you say. It is never shown, never shared, never added to the essay list, and no AI reads it. Why: so Nilabh can write to you about your trip. Nothing of yours is published unless you send it to us and approve it.
When Nilabh invites you to a Coffee with Nilabh interview (a personal link he sends you): your answers about your trip, the photos you add, when you agreed (if you agree on that page) and the story you send back. An AI, Anthropic's Claude, asks the questions one at a time and, at the end, writes your story up from your answers: your answers go to Anthropic for that, with phone numbers and email addresses hidden first; your photos are not sent to it, and their location and camera details are removed when they arrive. If your browser can turn speech into text on your own device, a Speak button appears: your voice never leaves your device, and only the words you see in the box are sent. Nothing is published until you have read your story, changed what you like and sent it, and Nilabh has read it. Why: to put your trip on Travelescape as you told it, without a long back-and-forth.
When you comment on a post: your name, your email address, your comment and the post it is on. Why: to read it and, if it fits, publish it under the post, to reply if needed, and to email you once when it is up. The name and comment are shown with the date; the email address never is.
When you reply in a community discussion: your first name, your city if you give it, your email address, your reply, and your okay to publish it under your first name. Why: to read it and, if it fits, publish it in the discussion, and to email you once when it is up. The first name, city and reply are shown with the date; the email address never is.
When you join the essay list: your email address. Why: to send you new essays, about once a month, after you confirm by email. Kit keeps the list and sends the emails; every email has an unsubscribe link. To stop automated sign-ups, we keep a one-way code made from your IP address for two days; it cannot be turned back into your address.
When you sign the Contributor Agreement (only writers we have invited): your full name, the name for your byline, your email address, your city and country, a short bio and a link if you give them, your answers about your essay (or, if your posts are already on the site, about those posts, including whether you were paid for them), the version of the Contributor Terms you agreed to, the date and time, and the country your connection came from. Why: it is the record of what we agreed, for you and for us. A copy is emailed to you and to us.
When you agree to share community notes (at travelescape.in/share-with-te/, or by replying "yes" to Nilabh on WhatsApp): your full name, the name to show, your city if you give it, your email address if you agree on the site, the version of the Contributor Terms you agreed to and the date. Nothing is collected from WhatsApp or Facebook by any program: a person copies a message of yours by hand, and only one you allowed. Before a note is published, its words and photos (with location and camera details removed, and phone numbers and email addresses hidden) are sent to Anthropic so its model can flag anything that should not be shown; a person then reads it. A published note shows the name you chose, your city, the month and year, and your words and photos, never your email address or phone number. Why: to keep what travellers share, with their name on it.
When you ask a question (Ask, at travelescape.in/ask/ and on the Search page): your question, and nothing else about you, is sent to Anthropic with passages from our own posts, so that its model can write an answer from them. Why: to answer it. We do not keep the question: we count only how many questions were asked and answered, and what they cost. When the answer is that we haven't written about a place yet, we count that place's name (for example "Mauritius") for 35 days, so we know what to write next; never your question, and nothing about you. Marking an answer useful or not is only counted, against the pages the answer quoted. If you press "Check the latest on the web", your question and our answer go to Anthropic, whose web search looks up the latest public pages on it; the pages it used are listed under that answer, and nothing more about you is sent. To limit how many questions (and votes) one visitor can send, we keep a one-way code made from your IP address for a day; it cannot be turned back into your address.
When you rate a post: the number of stars and the post. Why: to show readers how others found each guide, and to see which guides need work. To count one vote per reader per post, we keep a one-way code made from your IP address and the page for 30 days; it cannot be turned back into your address, and the address itself is not kept. No name, email or cookie is involved.
Hosting: your IP address and browser type appear in the hosting provider's request logs, as they do for any website. Why: to keep the site running and protect it from abuse.

Comments and discussions. Comments and discussion replies are read before they appear, and are shown with only the name (and, in discussions, the city) the writer gave, the date and the text. Once one is published we email the writer once to say so, and then delete their email address from our database. Each comment and reply also reaches Nilabh as an email with your address on it; those emails, and the one telling you yours is up, stay in our mailbox, are used for nothing else, and are deleted at once if you ask. Comments left before September 2026 are kept under their posts the same way; the email addresses, IP addresses and websites given with them are not shown anywhere on the site.

The Unscripted Circle. The Circle, our old email membership, has closed. There are no more Circle sign-ups, logins or dispatches. If you were a member and want your email address deleted, write to us.

How We Use Your Information

We use your information only for the purpose it was collected:

To understand how readers use the site so we can improve it.
To reply when you write to us.
To publish comments and discussion replies, after reading them, and to tell you once when yours is up.
To send new essays to the essay list, only after you have confirmed.
To protect the site from automated abuse.

We do not use your information for advertising, profiling, or any commercial purpose beyond operating this editorial site.

Cookies

We do not use advertising cookies, retargeting cookies, or third-party tracking cookies.

Analytics — None. PostHog and Vercel Web Analytics count page views without cookies and without storing anything in your browser, so a visit is counted but never recognised as yours the next time.
Light or dark theme — If you choose Light or Dark from the menu, your browser remembers the choice in its local storage. It never leaves your device.
Offline reading — Your browser keeps a copy of the pages you read here (the most recent 60), with their fonts and images, so they still open without a connection. The copies stay on your device and are never sent to us; clearing this site's data in your browser removes them.
Embedded videos — Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play on a video. After that, YouTube may store things in your browser (see Embedded Content below).

You can disable cookies in your browser settings at any time. The site will still function without them.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. Full stop.

We share data only with the service providers strictly necessary to operate the site:

Vercel — hosting provider. Serves the website, keeps short-lived request logs, counts page views with Vercel Web Analytics, and measures how fast pages load for visitors with Vercel Speed Insights. Neither uses cookies or identifies you.
Google Workspace — our email. Messages you send, by email or through the forms, are delivered to and kept in our Google Workspace mailbox, and so are the copies of each Contributor Agreement.
Kit — the essay list. If you ask for new essays, your address goes to Kit, which sends a confirmation email first and an unsubscribe link in every email after. If you are a contributor, your name, email, byline, city, country and bio are also kept there, tagged as a contributor, so we can write to our writers; if you agree to share community notes on the site, your first name, email, the name to show and your city, tagged as a community member. Neither puts you on the essay list. Their privacy policy.
Upstash — a small database that keeps messages from the Stay in touch form, requests for a Coffee with Nilabh and Coffee with Nilabh interviews with their photos (each 90 days at most), and comments and discussion replies waiting to be read, until we delete them or publish them. A published comment or reply keeps only the name, city if given, date and text; the email address is removed. It also keeps the Contributor Agreements writers have signed, and community notes with their photos while they wait to be read, until each is published or deleted.
Anthropic — makes Claude, the AI model behind Ask. When you ask a question, the question and passages from our posts go to Anthropic's API, which writes the answer. It also asks the questions in a Coffee with Nilabh interview and writes up the story from your answers (phone numbers and email addresses hidden first; photos are not sent), and it reads each community note and its photos before a person reviews it, to flag anything that should not be shown (phone numbers and email addresses are hidden first, and location and camera details removed from the photos). Anthropic does not train its models on it, and deletes it within 30 days (longer only if something breaks its usage policy). Their privacy policy.
PostHog — privacy-respecting analytics, stored in PostHog's EU region. Their privacy policy.

These providers process data only to support the functioning of the website and are bound by their own privacy commitments.

Where your data is kept. Travelescape is run from India, but the services above are run by companies in the United States (Vercel, Google, Kit, Upstash and Anthropic), and PostHog keeps its data in the EU. So what you send us is processed and stored outside India, by those providers, for the purposes above and nothing else.

Embedded Content

Some articles include a YouTube video. It waits as a "press to play" box, and nothing is loaded from YouTube until you press it, so reading the page tells YouTube nothing. When you press play, the video plays here from youtube-nocookie.com, YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode; from then on YouTube sees your visit as it would on its own site, and may collect data and store things in your browser independently of Travelescape.

We do not control these services.

How Long We Keep Your Data

Messages you send us: as long as the conversation needs, or until you ask us to delete them.
Coffee with Nilabh requests: 90 days at most in our database, then deleted by themselves; the email that told Nilabh stays in our mailbox until you ask us to delete it.
Coffee with Nilabh interviews: your answers, photos and story until your piece is published or you ask us to delete them, and never more than 90 days from the invitation. Anthropic deletes what it was sent within 30 days.
Essay list: until you unsubscribe, which you can do from any email.
Comments and discussion replies: published ones indefinitely, unless you ask for yours to be deleted; the email address is deleted from our database once we have told you it is up; the emails that brought each one to us, published or not, stay in our mailbox until you ask us to delete them.
Contributor Agreements: for as long as the essay is on the site, and three years after, because the licence you give us has no end date and the record must outlast any question about it. You can ask us to delete your profile and contact details at any time; the signed agreement itself we must keep while your essay is up.
Community notes: published notes until you ask for them to come down (then within a day); a note waiting for review, and its photos, until it is published or deleted; your agreement, as long as any note of yours is on the site and three years after.
Questions you ask: not kept by us; only the count of questions and answers, and for 35 days the name of a place we haven't written about yet. Anthropic deletes them within 30 days.
Ratings: the totals for each post (how many stars, from how many readers) indefinitely; the one-way code that stops repeat votes for 30 days.
Missing pages: the count of each missing address and where its links came from, 35 days; the one-way code that limits one visitor's reports, a day.
WhatsApp joins: how many tapped "Join on WhatsApp" each month, indefinitely; the one-way code that counts one visitor once, a day.
Analytics: kept in PostHog and Vercel Web Analytics, never linked to your name or email.
Hosting logs: a short period, set by Vercel.

Your Rights

Regardless of where you are located, you can contact us at any time to:

Access — request a copy of personal data we hold about you.
Correct — ask us to fix inaccurate information.
Delete — ask us to erase your data ("right to be forgotten"), including a comment you left in the past.
Object — object to any processing you believe is not justified.

India (Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023) — You can ask for a summary of the personal data we hold about you and who it was shared with; have it corrected, completed or erased; withdraw your consent at any time, as easily as you gave it; and name someone to use these rights for you if you die or cannot act. Nilabh Ranjan handles every request and grievance himself, at nilabh@travelescape.in. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

EU / EEA residents (GDPR) — You have enforceable rights under the General Data Protection Regulation. You can withdraw any consent you have given at any time.

California residents (CCPA) — We do not sell personal information. You have the right to know what data is collected and to request deletion. We will respond to verifiable requests within 45 days.

To use any of these rights, write to nilabh@travelescape.in.

Data Security

The site is served over HTTPS. Its pages are static, and there are no reader accounts or passwords to be exposed. Messages and comments waiting to be read are kept in a small database that only the site's own code can reach, and the one admin area needs the owner's Google Workspace sign-in.

To keep readers safe, our system routinely checks the links on our pages and removes any that are dead, no longer secure, or now lead to a different site. These checks visit only the linked pages and involve no reader data.

No transmission over the internet is 100% secure. If you have a security concern, please email us directly. If personal data we hold is ever exposed, we tell the people affected and the Data Protection Board of India, as the law requires.

Messages in our name. Our emails come from an address ending in @travelescape.in. We never ask for a password, an OTP, a PIN, card details or an ID document; the only bank, Wise or PayPal details we ask for are a signed writer's, to pay them. If a message claiming to be from Travelescape or Nilabh asks for any of these, don't reply: forward it to nilabh@travelescape.in.

Children

Travelescape is for adults and families, and children read it too. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you are under 18, please do not comment, share a note or join the essay list yourself: a parent or guardian can write to us, or sign up, for you. If we learn that we hold a child's details, we delete them. Ask Travelescape takes phone numbers, email addresses and ID numbers out of a question before it is read, and keeps nothing about the person asking. Nothing that could identify a child appears on the site without a parent's or guardian's consent (Terms, Children and Safety). A parent or guardian can ask us to remove anything about their child at nilabh@travelescape.in, and we will, at once.

Changes to This Policy

If we make material changes to this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page. We will not retroactively reduce your rights without notice.

The current version is always at travelescape.in/privacy-policy/.

Questions?

If anything here is unclear or you have a privacy request, write to us.

nilabh@travelescape.in

Nilabh reads every message and replies within a few days.