Privacy and your data

Data controller / Verantwortlicher

Impressum / Legal notice

Your rights and choices

Under the GDPR, you may request access, correction, erasure, restriction and, where applicable, data portability. You may object to processing based on legitimate interests, including direct marketing. You can withdraw consent at any time without affecting processing that was lawful before withdrawal. We respond to rights requests normally within one month; if a permitted extension is needed, we explain why within that month. We may need proportionate information to verify the request.

You can complain to a data protection supervisory authority, particularly where you live or work or where an alleged infringement occurred. Our local authority is the Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit.

You can browse without an account and decline optional analytics, newsletters and booking widgets. Information you choose to supply for a search or saved account feature is needed to provide that feature. Traworler does not make automated decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects about you.

Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit

Enable JavaScript to manage cookie choices. Optional analytics and embedded booking tools stay off without JavaScript.

Purposes and legal bases

We process requested searches, account features and saved trips to provide the service you request (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR). Security, abuse prevention, service diagnostics and handling general enquiries rely on our legitimate interests in operating and protecting the service (Article 6(1)(f)); contractual enquiries may instead use Article 6(1)(b). Optional analytics, the Booking.com search widget and newsletters rely on consent (Article 6(1)(a)). Access to or storage on your device that is not strictly necessary requires consent under § 25(1) TDDDG; strictly necessary storage uses § 25(2). Processing needed to meet legal obligations uses Article 6(1)(c).

Contact enquiries

When you submit our contact form, we send your reply email, selected topic and message to support@traworler.com through our configured SMTP mail provider. The website does not store the message in its application database, analytics or browser storage, and does not subscribe you to marketing. Your enquiry and our replies are held in the support mailbox while needed to handle the enquiry and any applicable legal obligations. Short-lived pseudonymous sender counters help prevent spam. You can also contact support directly by email; do not send payment details or identity documents through the form.

Hosting and service records

Our hosting, database and technical operations services process request IP addresses, request paths, timestamps, response status and technical device information to deliver the site and prevent abuse. Metrics and traces measure service performance. Product analytics are separate and require consent. We retain operational data only for troubleshooting, security and applicable legal obligations; saved account trips remain until removed or an erasure request is fulfilled, subject to a lawful retention requirement. Browser drafts remain on your device until you clear them or browser storage. Do not include sensitive personal information in searches, chat or reports.

Waypoint AI and international processing

Waypoint sends your question and relevant recent conversation context to the configured language-model service, which may be DeepSeek or a model accessed through OpenRouter, to generate travel guidance. Do not submit identity documents, payment details, health information or other sensitive personal data. Authentication, email delivery, analytics, AI, map and booking providers may process data outside the EEA. Provider privacy notices describe their processing; a provider privacy notice alone is not a transfer safeguard. You can request information about the recipients and applicable transfer arrangements from our privacy contact.

Server-side credentials

Travel provider API keys are stored on backend services. They are not intentionally exposed in frontend code, browser source, or public network calls.

Accounts and saved trips

Accounts are optional. Clerk provides sign-in, verification and account settings, and receives the account information you enter plus network and device information needed for authentication and abuse prevention. We do not store your password. Authentication cookies are necessary for an account and do not enable optional analytics or partner widgets. Clerk SDK telemetry is disabled. Our backend verifies short-lived session tokens using a public signing key. While signed in, your current trip route, saved guides and completed Waypoint answers save automatically in our database against your Clerk user ID. My trip and your account page show save status and recovery controls. Guest drafts are not uploaded on sign-in; importing a guest draft and saving it requires an explicit action. These are private, are not sent to booking partners or analytics, and remain until you remove the account copy. Removing it pauses automatic saving until you save again. Device drafts are separated for each signed-in account. Sign-out returns to the guest draft; existing local drafts can be cleared in My trip. Remove the saved account copy in My trip before deleting your Clerk profile. Deleting the profile does not automatically delete an existing saved trip from our database. Contact support@traworler.com for account-data removal or access requests. Clerk’s privacy policy is at clerk.com/legal/privacy.

Cookie choices

Essential storage keeps preferences and app behavior working. If you enable analytics, Traworler sends first-party product events to our own backend. We measure pseudonymous sessions, page use, active viewing time by section, saved guides and answers, fixed-choice helpfulness feedback, article filters, search result counts, affiliate handoffs, Waypoint reliability, device class, locale region, timezone, referrer, and campaign tags. Active viewing pauses in hidden or unfocused tabs and after 30 seconds without interaction. Search text and feedback free text are not collected. We do not store Waypoint questions, precise location, email addresses, or raw IP addresses in product analytics. Raw events are retained for up to 90 days.

Kiwi destination widget and optional booking tools

The homepage Kiwi.com destination widget loads automatically through Travelpayouts. This connects your browser to these providers, which receive network information such as your IP address and browser details and may use their own storage for the widget and affiliate attribution. Cookie settings for analytics and the optional Booking.com search widget do not switch off Kiwi. We retain the partner tracking marker so eligible bookings can earn a commission. Kiwi receives a clean helper-page address without your search query, URL fragment, chat or precise location. Final Kiwi searches and booking take place on Kiwi.com under its privacy terms. If the provider or your browser blocks the widget, native flight-search links remain available.

Optional Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a separate, optional choice in Cookie settings and stays off unless you enable it. Existing consent for Traworler analytics does not enable Google Analytics. When enabled on our public production site, your browser contacts Google, which receives network information including your IP address and uses analytics cookies to measure visits and page use. We measure page categories and fixed search, partner-handoff, Waypoint and consent milestones; query strings, URL fragments, chat text, search text, email tokens and user-supplied page titles are excluded. Admin and email confirmation pages are excluded, and advertising features and automatic enhanced measurement are disabled. With Google Analytics consent, confirming a requested plan email stores only a completion timestamp in session storage (traworler-ga-confirmed-plan-v1). It is valid for 30 minutes and consumed or discarded on your next measured public page in that tab; it is also removed on withdrawal or when the tab closes. It contains no email address, plan or confirmation token. The confirmation page itself does not contact Google. Analytics cookies expire after 90 days; Google account data retention is configured separately. You can withdraw consent in Cookie settings; we stop measurement and remove the Google Analytics cookies set for this property. Google processes this data under its own privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy. Contact support@traworler.com with privacy or deletion requests.

Newsletters and plan emails

Newsletter signup is optional and requires confirmation in your inbox. We store your email and consent dates to send occasional travel ideas and Traworler updates until you unsubscribe. Use the unsubscribe link in your confirmation or newsletter emails, or contact partnerships@traworler.com. Requesting a Waypoint plan email does not subscribe you. We first verify the recipient, then send that answer through our configured email provider. Pending plans are encrypted, removed when sent or failed, and expire after 24 hours. Expired requests are deleted by hourly cleanup; pseudonymous rate-limit records are deleted after 48 hours. Our email provider processes the recipient and message for delivery. Signup and delivery events enter product analytics only with analytics consent; email addresses, plan text and confirmation tokens are excluded.

Hotel maps

Hotel maps load only when you choose Map view. Your browser then requests map styles and tiles from OpenFreeMap, which receives your IP address and network information; its CDN may process these requests. We do not send your account, chat, booking dates, guest count or hotel prices to the map provider. Hotel pins are drawn locally from coordinates returned with the search. OpenFreeMap states that it uses no cookies or tracking, excludes IP addresses from ordinary access logs, and may retain IP addresses in error logs for seven days or security logs for up to thirty days. Its privacy policy is at openfreemap.org/privacy/. Returning to List removes the map and stops further map requests. Hotels without confirmed coordinates remain in the list.

Travel queries

Waypoint proactively checks flight, hotel, eSIM and experience options for a travel destination. Flight searches send route airport codes, dates, passenger counts and currency to Scrappa; the visitor IP and conversation are not sent. Hotel comparisons send only the destination, stay dates, adult and room counts, language and currency to Scrappa for Google Hotels and Booking.com data. No visitor IP, account details or conversation are forwarded. Scrappa hotel photos and review scores are not displayed or sent to your browser. Source ratings are used internally to select accommodations. Without dates, Waypoint labels a suggested three-night stay starting tomorrow; these dates are never used for flight searches. eSIM suggestions use a locally cached Airalo catalogue. Flights, eSIMs and experiences are separate purchases with the provider. Searches and Waypoint questions may be sent to backend travel services so the app can return routes, stays, weather, advisory context, or travel guidance. Japan hotel searches send the chosen city coordinates, stay dates and guest/room counts to Rakuten Travel. They do not send your name, email, Waypoint conversation or precise visitor location. Booking links open Rakuten, whose privacy terms apply there. Attraction ticket searches send the chosen city, optional search terms and currency to Tiqets. Checking a ticket date sends the product ID, visit date and currency. These requests do not send your name, email, Waypoint conversation or precise visitor location. Final ticket selection and booking happen on Tiqets, whose privacy terms apply there.

Location permission

Near-you weather uses browser geolocation only when you choose that control and grant permission. When you send a Waypoint travel question, our gateway automatically checks your request’s IP against its local city database to select a nearby scheduled departure airport in the estimated country. City coordinates stay in the gateway; only the airport code enters the flight search. This estimate can reflect a mobile network or VPN. Waypoint does not request device location or contact a public-IP helper. Supplied departure airports and dates take priority. Without a departure date, flight examples start two weeks from today; the estimate and default date are labelled and can be changed. We do not forward the visitor’s IP or coordinates to flight providers, language models or product analytics. The local lookup supports the IP2Location LITE database for IP geolocation and IP Geolocation by DB-IP.

IP2Location LITE database for IP geolocation

IP Geolocation by DB-IP

Trip report submissions

A submitted trip report includes the story, historical costs, display preference, and a private contact email. An optional photo album link is visible only to moderators. Reports remain private until reviewed; public reports never show the contact email or private album link. Email support@traworler.com to request correction or removal.