Hi. You can call me the Foodie. I am not part of the travel
industry, which is precisely the point. By day I run a wealth management
firm, where people pay me to tell them the truth about their money
whether they want to hear it or not. I am married to a woman with
exacting hotel standards, and we travel with our three daughters, which
means I have personally field-tested every kids club, connecting room,
and “family-friendly” breakfast buffet between here and the Algarve. My
name stays off the site: my clients and my girls did not sign up for the
internet, and the reviews do not need a byline to be true. They need
receipts, and I keep every one. By every other available hour, I am eating
my way through cities and staying in hotels my accountant describes as
“a choice.”

This site exists because of an argument I kept having with the
internet. Every time we planned a trip, I would spend hours reading
hotel reviews written by people who got the room for free, restaurant
lists written by people who had visibly never eaten at half the places,
and points content written by people whose actual product was a credit
card application. Meanwhile my wife, whose relationship with thread
counts I would describe as “clinical,” kept asking reasonable questions
like “is the suite worth it,” and nobody on the internet would answer
with a number.

So I started answering them myself, the way I answer financial
questions: with the receipts out. Many years, many countries, and an
embarrassing number of hotel breakfasts later, this is that habit with a
domain name.

What you’ll find here. Reviews of luxury and
boutique hotels I paid for, scored on a rubric I publish. Guides to
where locals actually eat near those hotels, because I refuse to believe
anyone flies eight hours to eat in a lobby. Honest math on the upgrades,
the club lounges, the all-inclusives, and the tasting menus. Because we
often travel as a family, honest coverage of the family side too: which
kids clubs are worth it, how the connecting rooms really work, and where
to get one great adult dinner within reach of the small people. And the
occasional story where everything went wrong, because those are the best
ones and you know it.

What you won’t find. Comped-stay flattery. “Hidden
gems” that have a gift shop. Eleven credit card recommendations. The
word “stunning.”

The cast. My wife appears here often, usually as the
palate I trust more than my own and the reason our hotel standards are
non-negotiable. She approves her cameos. Our three daughters turn up too, as
anonymous quality-control agents who stress-test the pools, the kids
clubs, and my patience; you will not see their names or faces, because
that is their call to make when they are older, not mine to make for
clicks. My day job makes me the kind of person who reads a hotel bill
line by line for sport and enjoys it more than I should. I have stopped
apologizing for this.

The honest disclosure, above the fold. This site
earns money from affiliate links, from my work as a travel advisor (if
you want a hotel I reviewed, I can usually book it for you with perks
attached at the same price), and from things I make, like city food
maps. It never earns money from the verdicts. The full policy is here:
/how-i-review/. Nobody made me write that. Twenty years around other
people’s money did.

If you are planning a trip and want it to go well, start with the
newsletter: one email a week, where I slept, what I ate, what it cost,
whether it was worth it. Or skip straight to asking me to plan the
thing: /plan-my-trip/.

Either way, thanks for reading.