Rent & Travel is a reader-supported journal. No booking engine, no commissions, no one paying for a kind word — just the practical travel advice we wish we'd had, written plainly and kept honest.
In the spring of 2021, a long-planned trip collapsed at the last minute — the flight cancelled, the refund a maze, the advice online a wall of identical, useless listicles. Somewhere between the hold music and the rebooking, the idea for Rent & Travel took shape: a place that explained travel the way a well-travelled friend would, without the hype, the hard sell, or the hidden agenda.
We launched from a kitchen table in Detroit's Corktown with a single guide and a newsletter nobody read yet. Five years on, the table is a little bigger and the readership spans more than forty countries, but the rule hasn't changed: we publish only what we'd genuinely use ourselves, and we test it on our own trips before it goes near the site.
Every guide is built from trips we've actually taken. If a tip stops working in the real world, we change it — and we date our updates so you know how fresh the advice is.
No affiliate links, no commissions, no pay-to-play placements. Nothing on this site is here because someone paid for it. Our only loyalty is to the reader planning a trip.
We'd rather be clear than clever. Real advice, written like a human, with the boring-but-vital details left in — because those are usually the ones that matter most.
We publish a handful of thorough guides rather than a flood of thin ones. A good guide should answer the whole question, not leave you opening ten more tabs.
We write about travel that's kinder to the places and people who host it — slower, more local, lighter on the ground. Good travel leaves a place a little better.
We're funded by readers and the occasional clearly-labelled display ad — never by quietly steering you toward a booking. Read exactly how in our editorial policy.
Independence only means something if it's paid for honestly. Rent & Travel runs on our free weekly newsletter, voluntary reader support, and a small amount of clearly-marked display advertising. We do not earn commission on anything we recommend, we don't take payment to feature a destination, hotel or product, and we don't publish sponsored articles dressed up as editorial.
That model keeps the incentives clean: we make money when our writing is genuinely useful enough that you come back and tell a friend — not when we nudge you toward a booking. If that sounds old-fashioned, good.
Got a question, a correction, or a place you think we should cover? We read everything. Drop us a line — or sign up and travel along with the Saturday dispatch.
