Guidelines for Content Creators

Mandatory field

• Best — Enter the title of your content piece exactly as it appears on your site or channel.
• OK — Shorten the title if it doesn't fit in the two lines of listing space.
• Not OK — Don’t confuse travelers with big changes. When they click GO!, they expect to arrive at a blog, vlog or podcast with the same title.

Space allows for the same number of characters / pixels as a Google search result. If your title is longer than about 60 characters, it will appear truncated in your listing. Long words at the end of the first row might jump to the second row, wasting precious space.

Mandatory field

VERY IMPORTANT! Each listing has a geographic "Focus":

• Entire Country — Example: suggested itinerary for three weeks in Thailand.
• State-Province-Region — Example: best surfing beaches in Hawaii.
• City-Town — Example: historical walking tours in London.

You select a Focus for each listing. It's vital to get this right, or your listing will not show up where it should.

Mandatory field.

The database contains 241 countries, territories and overseas possessions of colonial powers recognized as "countries' by Google. 

Please get spelling correct! Sometimes a Country may be known by different names, such as "Laos" or "Lao People's Democratic Republic" or "Lao PDR". We always use the most common name: "Laos".

Mandatory field.

Here, we will call it the "Region" field instead of "State-Province-Region"

Political unit between Country and City

You may have to look up the state, province or region. Use the City to search: "province of Rome, Italy"... will provide the Province of Rome. But there are 5 provinces in the Region of Lazio. Lazio is also a legitimate choice. It's up to you which one to use.

Fortunately, many countries have just one main political unit between Country and City. (Not including very local ones.) Names for political units also vary. France has Departments and Regions. Small countries may have Counties or Parishes. 

If you know the most commonly used Region, it's best to use it for optimum search results.

Well-known regions that are not formal political units

Examples: Scotland, Cappadocia, New England, Catalonia, Kyushu. Enter the Region manually. In the City field, enter the capital or largest city. For Catalonia, it's Barcelona. If you make a mistake, the database will forgive you, since your location is sorted by Region, not City.

Where there is no Region

Small countries may not have any states, provinces or regions. Small island states often go island by island. These are all okay. When in doubt, it's okay to use the City name in both the Region and City fields.

Mandatory field.

The smallest geographical area you can choose. It can be a city, a town, a village or a well-known geographical feature.

Beware of typos or alternative spellings. Do a Google search if you must.

If your location is not in our database, the New Location box will pop open. We need to use this because (believe it or not!) the Google API is not complete or accurate enough.

Step 1: shows a URL for Google Maps, already filled for your Country, Region and City. Just click on it and a new tab will open with the (almost local) Google Map.

Step 2: click on the map to place a pin on the City (or feature). Right on the City label is perfect. That will put a new URL up at the top, in the address bar.

Step 3: copy that URL to your clipboard.

Step 4: paste it into the box below.

That's it! Your correct location is now in the database. Time to move on to the Feature Image and beyond.

Mandatory field

Your choice of an image highlighting the location. 

• The easiest solution is to use the same image as on your original content. When a traveler goes to your site or channel, both the title and the image will be as expected.
• Podcasters might have to use an image from a personal collection or find an appropriate royalty free image. Please do not use copyrighted images.
• Vloggers can use the free Download YouTube Thumbnail utility to grab a still image.
• Aspect ratio = 3:2 ... Any other aspect ratio will be cropped to 3:2 automatically, with black bars above and below. And that's okay! Optionally, you can crop the image yourself.
• Default size = 500px X 332px ... This will reduce file size of a jpeg to less than the 100kb maximum. It's big enough to look good and small enough to load fast. Smaller images may look grainy.

Optional field

If you live at or within the geography of your content Focus (Country, Region, City), travelers will be alerted by an icon in the listing that you offer special local knowledge.

For example, if you live in Perth, Australia, you’re likely to know a lot about Perth. But how much about the vast state of Western Australia? Be honest about your knowledge. If you don't know Western Australia that well, don't claim to be "local" on Region content. But if you really are expert on Broome, Kalgoorlie, Albany and Prince Regent National Park, your insight is golden!

Mandatory field

Is your content a Blog, a Vlog or a Podcast? Travelers can choose their preferred medium by noting an icon in the listings.

Optional field... blogs only

To get an easy word count, copy your text content to the clipboard and paste it into wordcounter.net

Optional field... for vlogs and podcasts

Format: h:mm:ss

Mandatory field

When was the content published or refreshed?

A pop-up box will open. Select in this order:

• Year
• Month
• Day (only the month and year will show in your listing, so the dd number doesn't matter)

At least one Topic is required

See "Getting Filters Right" (below) for the full list of Topics.

What is your content about? These are broad Topic categories which are used as filters in search results. You can get more specific in the Details and More fields.

Choose at least one of the checkboxes.

• Select all the Topics that apply. There’s limited display space for filters. If you select too many, not all will be visible in the listing.
• Don’t claim a Topic for something you don’t cover well: travelers won’t appreciate a filter for “Museums” when all you’ve got to say is, “The town is famous for its museums.” Provide value on every Topic you choose.

IMPORTANT: At the bottom there's a box with your Topic selections in it. You can drag and drop to reflect your own priority topics. If you have a lot of Topics, the lowest priority ones may not display.

Optional field

Put anything you want in here to provide sharper focus on your content. For example, if one of your Topics is "Cheap food", Details might include, "Street Food", "Night Market", "Italian", "Mexican", "Vegetarian"...

Again, space is limited, so we limit Details to 15. But, depending on length, some of your items may not show.

IMPORTANT: Details appear in the order you create them. So input your highest priority Details first. You can edit the order by deleting and re-typing.

Optional field

This text box gives you limited space (about 400 words) to say whatever you want about your content.

The easiest way to provide More is to copy and paste the intro text from your original content (if any).

But it's an opportunity to make it a strong pitch for travelers to click “GO!”. For example:

• Present your experience and personality... the stuff that makes personal blogs, vlogs and podcasts more authentic than corporate content.
• Get into more detail than Details.
• Offer opinions that show you're not providing descriptions only.

Except for paragraph breaks, More text cannot be formatted. Nor can links be entered.

Mandatory field

The all-important link behind the “GO” button, taking travelers to your original material. 

• Use the full URL, starting with https://
• If you redirect the URL on your site or channel, change it here too. Publishers of broken links get one warning email. If the link remains broken more than 30 days, we will remove the listing.