Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 2026.

This policy explains how Charleston Visitor Guide ("we", "us") handles personal information on charlestonvisitor.com (the "Site"). We have tried to describe what actually happens rather than reserve rights we do not use.

The short version

The Site has no user accounts, takes no payments, hosts no comments or user submissions, and runs no advertising. Three things involve personal information: analytics that measure which pages get read, affiliate links that credit us if you book a tour or hotel, and an optional email signup for our printable trip plan. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.

Information we collect

Information you give us

Email signup. If you request the printable Charleston plan, we collect your email address and, if you choose to provide it, the month you plan to travel. Both fields are submitted by you; the trip month is optional.
Correspondence. If you email us — for corrections, questions or press enquiries — we receive your email address and whatever you put in the message.

We do not ask for your name, postal address, phone number, date of birth, payment details, or any special category of personal information, and there is no way to submit them through the Site.

Information collected automatically

When you visit, our analytics provider and our host automatically log technical information, including your IP address (from which an approximate city-level location is derived), device and browser type, operating system, referring website, the pages you view, the time and duration of your visit, and certain interactions we measure as events — principally when an affiliate link is clicked and when the email form is submitted.

Cookies and similar technologies

Analytics cookies. We use Google Analytics 4, which sets cookies to distinguish visits and sessions.
Affiliate cookies. When you click a booking link, the destination — GetYourGuide or Expedia — sets its own cookies so that a resulting booking is credited to us. GetYourGuide's cookie currently runs for 31 days. These cookies are set by those companies on their domains and are governed by their privacy policies, not this one.
GetYourGuide integration script. Pages carrying GetYourGuide links load that company's integration-analytics script, which reports how our links perform. GetYourGuide states it sets no third-party cookies.
What we do not use. No advertising or retargeting pixels, no social media tracking pixels, no session recording, no fingerprinting, and no data brokers. A Pinterest verification tag appears in the page source; it confirms domain ownership and does not track you.

Most browsers let you block or delete cookies in their settings, and content blockers will stop the analytics script entirely. Blocking them does not affect your ability to read the Site.

How we use personal information

To operate and improve the Site — understanding which guides are read and which are ignored, and fixing what is not working.
To measure affiliate performance — knowing which recommendations lead to bookings, which is how the Site is funded.
To send what you asked for — the printable plan, and occasional trip-planning email if you signed up for it.
To respond to you — replying to corrections, questions and enquiries.
To comply with law and protect the Site — including responding to lawful requests and addressing security or abuse issues.

Where the law requires a legal basis for processing, ours is: your consent (email signup and analytics cookies where consent is required), and our legitimate interests in understanding Site usage, running an affiliate-funded publication, and keeping the Site secure.

We do not use your personal information to train artificial intelligence models, and we do not licence it to anyone who does.

How we share personal information

Service providers. Cloudflare (hosting and delivery), Google (analytics) and Resend (email delivery) process data on our behalf so the Site can function.
Affiliate partners. When you click a booking link you are sent to GetYourGuide or Expedia, and your interaction there is subject to their policies. We receive only aggregate reporting from them — how many clicks and bookings occurred — never the identity of who booked.
Legal and safety. We may disclose information if required by law, or where necessary to investigate abuse, enforce our terms, or protect rights and safety.
Business transfers. If the Site is sold or merged, information may transfer as part of that transaction; any acquirer would remain bound by this policy or give notice of change.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, as those terms are defined under California and other US state privacy laws.

How long we keep it

Email addresses are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them, after which they are removed from our sending list; a minimal suppression record may be retained so we do not email you again by mistake. Analytics data is retained on Google's standard retention schedule for our property. Correspondence is kept as long as needed to deal with the matter and a reasonable period afterwards.

Your choices

Unsubscribe. Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe link, and our emails support one-click unsubscribe in mail clients that offer it. You may also contact us and we will remove you.
Opt out of analytics. Use any content blocker, your browser's cookie controls, or Google's opt-out browser add-on.
Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. Browsers vary in what they send and there is no common standard for responding to Do Not Track, so we do not respond to DNT signals. Where we are required to honour Global Privacy Control signals, we do.
Declining to provide information. Everything on the Site is readable without giving us anything. The only consequence of declining is that we cannot email you the plan.

Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or obtain a copy of personal information we hold about you, to opt out of certain processing, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. This includes residents of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah and other US states with comprehensive privacy laws, and individuals in the UK, EU and EEA under the GDPR.

To exercise any of these, contact us and say what you want done. Because we hold very little — for most visitors, nothing that identifies you at all — we can usually action a deletion request immediately. We may need to verify your request, which for an email-list request normally means replying from the address concerned. You may use an authorised agent where the law allows. If we decline a request we will explain why, and you have the right to appeal by replying to that response.

For data held by Google, GetYourGuide or Expedia about your interactions with them, those requests are best directed to them, and their policies explain how: Google, GetYourGuide, Expedia, and Resend.

Security

The Site is served over HTTPS and is a static site, which means there is no database of visitor records to breach. Email addresses are held by our email provider under its own security programme. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

International visitors

We operate from the United States and our service providers may process data in the United States and elsewhere. If you visit from outside the US, your information will be transferred to and processed in the US, where privacy laws may differ from those where you live. Where required, our providers rely on recognised transfer mechanisms such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

Children

The Site is intended for a general audience and is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the Site changes. Material changes will be reflected here with a new "last updated" date before the change takes effect, and continued use of the Site after that date means the updated policy applies.

How to contact us

Email [email protected] or use the contact page for any privacy question, request, or complaint. If you are in the UK or EEA and are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to your local data protection authority.