Last updated: 14 September 2026. This policy explains what data travelfrugally.com collects, why, and what your rights are. The site is a personal, non-commercial blog run by a private individual in Switzerland. Contact: contact form.
1. Hosting and server logs
The site is hosted by Bluehost (Newfold Digital, USA). Like every web server, the host automatically records technical data when you open a page: IP address, date and time, the page requested, browser type and the referring page. These logs are used for security and to keep the site running, and are deleted by the host according to its retention rules.
2. Cookies and consent
When you first visit, a cookie banner (CookieYes) asks for your consent before any non-essential cookies are set. Essential cookies (for example the one that remembers your cookie choice, or the comment-form cookie if you tick “save my name”) are set without consent. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time via the cookie settings link in the banner or the footer.
3. Statistics: Google Analytics and Jetpack Stats
With your consent, Google Analytics 4 (Google Ireland Ltd.) measures how the site is used: pages visited, approximate location (country/city, IP addresses are not stored), device and browser, and how you arrived. Data may be transferred to Google servers in the USA under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. You can opt out with the Google Analytics opt-out add-on or by declining statistics cookies in the banner. Jetpack Stats (Automattic Inc.) additionally counts page views in anonymised form.
4. Advertising: Google AdSense
The site shows ads from Google AdSense. With your consent, Google and its certified partners may use cookies and similar technologies to show personalised ads based on your visits to this and other websites. Without consent, only non-personalised ads are shown. You can manage ad personalisation at adssettings.google.com. More about how Google uses data from partner sites: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
5. Images and site functions: Jetpack
Images and some static files are delivered through the Jetpack content delivery network (Automattic Inc.) so that pages load faster. When you load a page, your browser requests these files from Automattic servers, which see your IP address for that purpose. Jetpack also provides the contact form and related-posts feature.
6. Contact form and comments
If you use the contact form, your name, email address and message are sent to me by email and stored in WordPress so that I can reply. If you leave a comment, the comment, your name, email address, IP address and browser string are stored. Comments are checked for spam by Akismet (Automattic Inc.). An anonymised hash of your email address may be sent to Gravatar to display a profile picture. Comments and their data stay on the site indefinitely so that follow-up comments make sense; you can ask me to delete them at any time.
7. Security: Wordfence
The Wordfence firewall (Defiant Inc.) protects the site against attacks. It processes IP addresses and request data to detect malicious traffic and may temporarily block an address that behaves suspiciously.
8. Embedded content and external links
Some pages embed content from other sites (for example YouTube videos, Instagram or Google Maps). Embedded content behaves exactly as if you had visited the other site: it may set its own cookies and track your interaction. Links to external sites are provided for convenience; I am not responsible for their content or privacy practices.
9. Your rights
Under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) and, where applicable, the EU GDPR, you can ask what personal data I hold about you, have it corrected or deleted, and object to its processing. To exercise these rights, use the contact form. You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority (in Switzerland the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner, FDPIC).
10. Changes
This policy is updated when the site’s tools change. The date at the top shows the current version.