Frequently Asked Questions

Wildcrest Journal gets the same handful of questions most weeks, and the answers below are the ones the desk sends back by mail, kept short with a link to the guide that carries the detail.

How a guide gets checked

Every route on the journal was walked, ridden or driven before it was written up. Walking times come from a phone in a pocket rather than a map scale, prices from the ticket window with the month noted down, and hours from the operator instead of a listing site. When a line closes or a fare moves, the page changes that week and the note at the foot of the guide records the last check.

Do the prices still hold

Treat any figure as a plan rather than a quote once the season has turned. A page from last spring stays sound on the route and softer on the number at the top, because entries, transfers and ferry timetables move while the walk does not. The fastest way to settle a number is to ask the desk: if it has been checked since, you get the current figure, and if it has not, you get that answer instead of an assembled guess.

Why some pages run long

Because the detail is the point. A day plan that skips queue times, closing hours and the walk from the car park is a list of names, and a list of names can be found anywhere. Long pages open with the cost line and the timing, then the route itself, then what I would change if I ran it again. The tables carry the arithmetic for anyone in a hurry.

How to ask a question or send a correction

Use the contact page and include the guide name, your dates and where you are starting from. Corrections go to the front of the queue: the page, the line that is wrong and what you saw, or a photograph of a timetable when you have one. A verified correction is credited at the foot of the guide it fixed.

Where a new reader should start

Start Here runs the shortest path through the journal and groups the pages around the three questions that come up first: when to go, what a place costs and how to spend the first day without wasting it. Families get more use from the two hubs, Orlando with kids and a month in Montenegro, because both gather timings, costs and the order in which things should be booked.

Do you take paid placements

No paid paragraph sits inside a route page, no hotel bought a stop and nothing enters a table because of an invoice. Where a link earns anything, the text says so, and the recommendation still has to stand on its own. That rule is also why a page can admit that a place disappointed me, which has happened more than once.

Can I reuse the material

Short excerpts with a link are fine, and the photographs are not mine to pass on. For anything wider than that, write to the desk with what you have in mind and you will get a plain answer within two business days.