This privacy policy explains what Botswana Travel Guide collects when you read the site, why, and what you can do about it. We are a small independent editorial website, not a platform: we have no accounts, no logins, no newsletter database and no advertising network, and the less we hold about you the better we like it.
Who we are
Botswana Travel Guide is an independent, editorially run travel guide, described more fully on our about page. It is operated by the publisher of this site, who can be reached through our contact page. For the purposes of data protection law, that publisher is the data controller for this website.
What this privacy policy covers us collecting
- Server logs. Like every web server, ours records requests: IP address, the page requested, date and time, referring page, and browser and operating system details. These are used to keep the site running, diagnose faults and detect abuse.
- Analytics data. We measure aggregate traffic — which pages are read, roughly where readers are, which devices they use — to work out what to write and what to fix. We use this in aggregate and do not attempt to identify individual readers.
- Anything you send us. If you write to us through the contact page or by email, we hold your message and your address for as long as it takes to deal with it, and to keep a record if it led to a correction. We do not add correspondents to any mailing list.
We do not knowingly collect payment details, identity documents or any special category data. There is nothing on this site that asks for them, and you should never send them to us.
Cookies and similar technologies
Cookies are small files a site or an embedded service stores in your browser. Three kinds may appear here.
- Essential cookies set by this site, for basic functioning and preferences.
- Analytics cookies or identifiers, used to count visits and understand which pages are read.
- Affiliate and partner cookies. When you click through to an accommodation booking partner, that partner — and the discovery layer we use, Stay22 — may set a cookie recording that you arrived from this site, so that any resulting booking is attributed to us. That is the mechanism by which we are paid, explained in full in our affiliate disclosure. It costs you nothing and does not change your price.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and you can use the site without following any affiliate link at all.
Third-party embeds and links
Some pages embed material from booking partners, including maps of places to stay. When such an embed loads, your browser contacts that provider directly, which means the provider can see your IP address and set its own cookies under its own privacy policy, not ours. The same is true the moment you follow any external link off this site.
We have no control over what third parties do with data you give them. If you book with a partner, that booking — your name, dates, payment and everything else — is between you and them. We never see it.
How we use and share information
We use what we collect to operate and secure the site, understand aggregate readership, reply to correspondence, and comply with the law. We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with anyone except the service providers who host the site, deliver it and provide analytics, all acting on our instructions, and where we are legally required to disclose it.
Retention
Server logs are kept for a short period for security and diagnostics, then discarded or aggregated. Analytics data is retained in aggregate form. Correspondence is kept only as long as it remains useful — if you ask us to delete an exchange, we will, unless we need it to explain a published correction.
Lawful basis and your rights
Where data protection law such as the UK and EU GDPR applies, we rely on legitimate interests for server logs and security, on consent where consent is required for non-essential analytics or partner cookies, and on legitimate interests or the steps needed to answer you for correspondence.
You generally have the right to ask what we hold about you, to have inaccurate data corrected, to have data erased, to restrict or object to processing including profiling, to receive your data in a portable form, and to withdraw consent at any time. You also have the right to complain to your national data protection authority. To exercise any of these, write to us through the contact page. We may need to ask for enough information to be sure who you are.
Children
This site is written for adults planning travel and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, tell us through the contact page and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
We may update this privacy policy as the site changes. The current version is always the one published here, and the last-updated date shown on this page tells you when it last changed. Material changes will be summarised at the top of the page rather than slipped in.
See also our terms of use and editorial policy, or start planning at travel planning and destinations.