It's nice to meet you
I'm Nick. And honestly? This site isn't really about me. It's about getting you out the door and onto the best trip you've ever taken.
Nick in Pisa
Wave to the drone!
How this whole thing started
Back in 2007 I went to Brazil, met some sloths, and that was pretty much that. Hooked. (If you ever make it out there, go and see the sloths. Cute doesn't quite cover it.)
Fast forward a few years and I'd gone all in. Between 2014 and 2020 I travelled pretty much full-time, living out of a bag and rarely staying anywhere for long. That included a stint working in a hostel in Berlin, which if you've ever stayed in one, you'll know is an education all of its own. Honestly? There's no better crash course in how people actually travel.
Then 2020 happened. Covid hit, borders slammed shut, and six years of near non-stop travel came to a very sudden halt. So I sat down with thirteen years of trips rattling round my head and started building thetraveltinker.com. And it grew from there. Then kept growing. Now there's over 1,200 guides on here, which still feels a bit mad.
The reason behind it hasn't changed one bit though. To help you plan your own epic trip without the stress, the guesswork, or the forty browser tabs. I reckon the best way to teach is by showing, so that's what we do here. Real routes. Honest costs. None of the fluff you get everywhere else.
The goal's simple really. Show that travel can be safe, easy, and a proper laugh. Have a good poke around the site, and if something's broken or you're stuck on anything, just give me a shout.
A big thanks to my cousin Tom, who keeps the techy bits ticking over behind the scenes.
Up the I'AM Tower, Amsterdam
The camera comes too
Turns out showing beats telling. The trips behind these guides get filmed as we go, so you can see the walk from the station, the actual size of the room, and the bits that photos quietly leave out.
Places that left a mark
A quick run through the trips that stuck with me. Some were planned. Some really weren't.
Went for the sloths. Stayed for everything else.
South AmericaGot shipwrecked out here. Long story.
MexicoPartied. That's all you're getting.
GermanyCheered on the European champions.
The AlpsSnowboarded badly. Loved every second.
BudapestCrawled through caves I probably shouldn't have.
TunisiaQuad biked across the sand dunes.
ChernobylHands down the strangest place I've stood.
What I'm up to right now
Fresh back from eight days round Slovenia, Croatia and northern Italy. Lake Bled, Bohinj, the Vršič Pass, Postojna Cave, the Soča Valley and Piran, all from a base in Ljubljana with a hire car out of Zagreb. Busy week.
So now I'm writing it all up. First the full Slovenia road trip itinerary, then Lake Bled, with walking tours to follow and a fair amount of moaning about Alpine tunnel tolls.
Updated October 2026
A bit more about me
Since you asked. Or didn't. Either way, here's the short version.
NICK
SEAT 1A · WINDOWThree things we always stick to
It's the line you'll see at the top of every page for a reason.
Real routes
Itineraries we'd actually do ourselves, not lifted from some press release. If we say a place is worth it, we've been.
Honest costs
Real prices in pounds, dollars and euros, side by side. No mystery maths, no nasty surprises when you land.
Zero fluff
Straight to the useful bit. Your time's worth more than scrolling past a thousand words to reach the actual answer.
How a guide actually gets made
Four steps, every time. Slower than churning out ten posts a week, which is rather the point.
We go, or we say we didn't
Most of what's here comes from trips we've actually done. If we haven't been somewhere yet, it says so near the top rather than pretending otherwise.
We price it properly
Costs go in pounds first, with euros and dollars alongside, plus the month we checked them. No vague hand waving about somewhere being cheap.
We check the boring stuff
Visa rules, baggage limits, opening times and ticket prices get checked against official sources. Government and operator sites, not somebody's 2019 blog post.
We come back and fix it
Things change. When a route closes or a price jumps, the guide gets updated and the revision date changes with it. Spot something wrong and I'll sort it.
What we won't do
Short list. Probably matters more than the long one.
No paid coverage
Nobody buys a good review or a spot in a guide. Not hotels, not tour operators, not tourism boards.
No press trips
Every ferry, room, hire car and museum ticket on this site was paid for out of my own pocket.
No invented experience
If a guide says I walked a route or stayed somewhere, I did. Where I haven't been, the guide says so.
No pushing you to the pricey option
If the cheaper choice is the better one, that's where you'll get pointed, even when the expensive one pays us more.
Got a travel story worth telling?
Write for us. Posts can pay. Send your unique travel piece our way and we'll take it from there. We're always after fresh voices and places we haven't covered yet.
Meet the people behind the posts
Massive thanks to everyone who chips in. Fancy guest posting? Just drop me a message.
We've popped up here and there
The partners above are affiliate or commercial links. If you book through them it costs you nothing extra, and we only ever feature people and places we'd actually use ourselves.
Who pays for all this
I do. Every ferry ticket, hire car, museum entry and disappointing motorway coffee comes out of my own pocket. There's no team here, no travel budget, no press trips. Just me, a laptop, and a growing habit of photographing car park signage.
The guides on this site are free and they're staying free. Ads cover some of the hosting. Affiliate links cover a bit more, and if you book something through one of them I get a small cut at no extra cost to you, which is honestly the easiest way to help.
But if you've used a guide, saved a bit of money, or dodged a mistake I already made for you, there's a Patreon. Patrons get early access to new guides, the map legends before they go on sale, and a say in what I cover next. The finished Google Map legends live in the shop if you'd rather just buy one outright.
No pressure either way. If you'd rather just read the free stuff forever, that's genuinely what it's there for.
Questions I get a lot
The ones that land in my inbox most weeks, answered properly.
Have you actually been to all these places?
Not all of them, no, and I'd rather say that than fudge it. Loads of the guides come from my own trips. Where a guide covers somewhere I haven't reached yet, it's built from research against official sources and it says as much near the top. You'll always know which one you're reading.
How does the site make money?
Three ways. Display ads, affiliate links (if you book through one I get a small cut at no extra cost to you), and the map legends in the shop. Some readers chip in through Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee. That's the lot. Nobody pays me to write nice things about them.
Do you accept sponsored posts or paid reviews?
No. Not from hotels, tour companies or tourism boards. If you want to work together on something that isn't a bought review, the work with us page explains what I'm open to.
I've spotted something out of date. Who do I tell?
Me, please. Prices creep up, routes close, restaurants shut. Send it through the contact page and I'll check it and update the guide. Genuinely one of the most useful things a reader can do.
Can I write for The Travel Tinker?
Yes, and posts can pay. I'm after first-hand pieces on places we haven't covered, written in your own voice. Pitch it through the work with us page and tell me where you've been.
Say hello
Stuck on a plan, spotted a mistake, or fancy working together? Everything that comes in gets read and most of it gets a reply within a couple of days. Longer if I'm somewhere with no signal, which happens more than you'd think.
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