Affiliate links, stated plainly

The statement Amazon requires

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

That sentence appears next to the Amazon links themselves, not only here. Amazon's programme requires it to be on the site and clear, and the US Federal Trade Commission requires the same idea to sit next to the links it applies to.

Which links are affiliate links

• Amazon — yes. Eleven of the twelve items in the travel-kit table on resources link to Amazon with the tracking id travel-where-20. If you buy one, Amazon pays this site a percentage of the price.
• Macy's — no. The charging-station row links to Macy's as a plain link. There is no commission on it.
• Everything else — no. Viator, GetYourGuide, Klook, Tiqets, Points Brief, the official park and monument ticket portals, and the Wikimedia Commons photo credits are all plain links. Nothing is paid for those clicks, and no brand has paid for a mention, a ranking or a rating anywhere on the site.
• If that changes, this page changes first. Any new affiliate partner gets listed here before its links go live, and the page date moves.

What an affiliate link actually does

• It adds a tag to the address. An Amazon link here ends in ?tag=travel-where-20. That tag tells Amazon the visit came from this site.
• Amazon pays a percentage, not you. The price you pay is identical to typing the same product into Amazon yourself. If you buy within the window Amazon sets, the site earns a commission from Amazon's margin.
• Rates and windows are Amazon's to change. They vary by product category, and Amazon can revise them. Nothing on this site quotes a rate, because quoting one would age badly.
• No prices are shown here on purpose. Amazon's terms only allow a site to display its prices when the price is served live and timestamped by Amazon itself. That is why the kit table says to check the price rather than printing one.

What it does not change

• The kit is my own gear. Every item in the table is something I bought and travel with. It was written and published before the site joined any programme; the links were tagged afterwards.
• No commission decides placement. Nothing is in the table because it pays, and nothing is out because it does not. If an item stops being the one I would take, it comes off regardless of what it earns.
• No brand sees a page first. Hotels, tour operators, tourist boards and manufacturers have no advance sight of a guide and cannot pay to change one.
• Ratings are a formula, not a negotiation. The seven-wonder scores come from the method described on the methodology page, and no commercial relationship touches them.

Amazon specifics

• The tag is registered to this site. travel-where-20 was issued to Where Next by Amazon Associates. Using a tag belonging to another site can void commissions, so it is never shared.
• You leave this site when you click. From that point you are on Amazon, under Amazon's privacy notice and its own cookies. The privacy page describes what that means here.
• What comes back is aggregate. Clicks, orders and commission totals by product. Not your name, address, email or payment details — this site never sees an Amazon order.
• Reviews on Amazon are not mine. Star ratings and customer reviews on a product page belong to Amazon and its customers.
• Product images are the retailers' listing shots, used to identify the item. Rights stay with their owners.

If you would rather not use them

Search the product name directly on Amazon, or buy from the brand's own store. You get the same item at the same price and this site earns nothing. Nothing about what you can read here depends on clicking a link.

You can also block or clear cookies in your browser; Amazon's own help pages explain how its tracking works.

Questions or corrections

If a link is mislabelled, a product has changed, or something here is unclear, say so — the contact page has the address. Corrections are made and this page is dated again.

Last reviewed: 28 October 2026. This page describes the site's commercial arrangements; it is not legal advice.