Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Hikepilot LLC operates TripJoiner and is the company responsible for the personal information described in this policy.Hikepilot LLC also operates one other travel site, named at the top of this page. The two sites share one account system and this one Privacy Policy.

TripJoiner is a marketplace. Depending on the site, independent organizers publish scheduled group trips that travelers can request to join, or local guides offer experiences that travelers can explore and request on their own dates. This policy describes how we handle personal information when you browse either site, create or use an account, request or organize a trip, message other users, upload documents, use AI features, contact support, or take part in reviews and forums.

You can contact us or exercise a privacy right through Support. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

2. One account on both sites

• Shared account: an account created on either site works on both. Your sign-in details, name, profile, roles (traveler, organizer or guide, admin), account status, and privacy and notification settings are the same everywhere.
• Moving between sites: when you follow a link from one site to the other while signed in, we use a short-lived, single-use sign-in handoff so you stay signed in. The handoff carries no information beyond what is needed to recognize your account and expires within about a minute.
• What each site uses: trips, experiences, bookings, requests, messages and reviews belong to the site where they were created and keep that site’s name. Because they are linked to one account, your workspace and notifications on either site can show activity from both sites, labelled with the site it belongs to.
• Notifications: you may receive in-app notifications and transactional email about activity on either site. Each notice names the site it comes from, and your notification settings let you mute a site.
• Public profiles: an organizer or guide profile, and the listings and reviews attached to it, may be shown on both sites when the organizer offers trips or experiences on each.

3. Information we process

• Accounts: name, email, profile details and photo, roles (traveler, organizer or guide, admin), account status, and sign-in records. If you choose to sign in with a third-party provider such as Google or Apple, we receive the basic profile and email that provider shares.
• Bookings: join requests, booking references, participant details you provide, status history, and payment-claim milestones you or the organizer record (these are workflow claims, not platform-processed payments).
• Trip requests: requests to join a trip and custom or private trip requests, including the dates, group size, participants, preferences and notes you provide, and the organizer’s or guide’s replies and quotes.
• Messages: content and metadata of conversations between travelers, organizers, guides and support. Messages are visible to the people in the conversation and may be reviewed by authorized admins when handling a report, dispute or support case.
• Documents: files you upload for a booking (for example passport images, waivers, or payment proof) stored for that booking’s parties and authorized admins.
• Organizer and guide verification: business and identity details, licences, insurance or other evidence that organizers and guides submit for review, and the review decision. Verification evidence is visible only to the submitting account and authorized admins.
• Support: support case subject, description, category, linked booking references, and related audit events.
• Reviews, forums and reports: ratings, review text, organizer and guide responses, forum threads and replies, reports, moderation decisions, and related audit history. Reviews and forum posts are public and show your display name.
• AI features: questions you ask the AI assistant, the page you asked from, and text you submit to AI writing help (see section 5).
• Location: places you choose (see section 4).
• Technical and usage data: device and browser information, IP address, cookie or session identifiers, error events, and performance data used for security, reliability, and product improvement, plus anonymous page-view counts (see section 8).

We collect information from you, the other party to a booking or request, organizers and guides whose pages you use, sign-in providers you choose, service providers that operate the platform, and automated security or operational logs.

4. Location data

We do not track your device’s location. When you search for or pick a place (for example a destination, meeting point, or service area), the text you type is sent to a geocoding service to find matching places, and we store the chosen place’s name and map coordinates. Listings store the coordinates of their places. Organizers and guides may set a home base and service areas, which are stored as place coordinates and used to show them to travelers searching nearby. Maps you view are drawn from map data supplied by the providers listed in section 6.

6. How we use information

We use personal information to operate accounts and bookings, enable messaging and document exchange, provide support, enforce policies, prevent abuse, send transactional email, and improve the product. We do not use TripJoiner to collect or process traveler tour payments.

We also use account information to keep one account working on both sites, to show your activity from both sites in your workspace, and to send notifications about activity on either site.

Where data-protection law requires a legal basis, we rely as appropriate on performing our agreement with you, complying with law, protecting users and the service through legitimate interests, and consent for processing that legally requires consent. You may withdraw consent for future processing where consent is the basis.

7. Service providers and third-party data

We use these providers to run both sites:

• Vercel: website hosting.
• Supabase: authentication, database and file storage.
• Resend: transactional email delivery.
• Inngest: background jobs such as reminders and scheduled processing.
• Sentry: error monitoring. We configure it to remove cookies and sign-in tokens from error reports.
• Our AI provider (an OpenAI-compatible service): the AI assistant, AI writing help, and AI-generated journal and destination content.
• Geoapify: place search, geocoding and map tiles. Map data is © OpenStreetMap contributors and is credited on the map.
• Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata: destination photos and place facts. Photos are credited to their authors with their licences; Wikidata facts are public-domain data.
• Open-Meteo: historical weather data for destination pages.
• MET Norway (met.no): weather forecasts for destination pages and trip dashboards. Our server asks for the forecast, so your IP address is not sent to them.
• Unsplash: some trip and destination photos. Your browser loads these photos directly from Unsplash.
• Stripe: payments, when enabled. At the time of this update, no traveler payments are processed on either site.

When you view a map or a destination photo, your browser may load it directly from the map or photo provider, which then receives your IP address and browser information under its own privacy policy. We may also use a payment provider for organizer memberships and promotions only. Vendors process data under our instructions and applicable agreements. TripJoiner does not place traveler tour money with a payment processor through this platform. We may add or replace operational providers as the service changes and will update this list.

9. Sharing

Booking and request details may be shared with the other party (traveler, organizer or guide) as needed to fulfill the trip workflow. Public profile, listing, review and forum content is shown to anyone on the site where it appears, and may appear on both sites as described in section 2. We may share information with service providers, when required by law, or to protect users and the platform. We do not sell personal information or use it for cross-context behavioral advertising. If that practice changes, we will update this policy and provide any legally required choice before the change applies.

10. Retention and security

We retain account, booking, request, message, document, verification and support records for as long as reasonably needed to operate the service, preserve safety and audit history, meet legal obligations, prevent fraud, and resolve disputes. Retention depends on the record type, account or booking status, legal requirements, and active disputes. We delete or de-identify information when it is no longer reasonably needed, except where continued retention is permitted or required by law. We apply administrative and technical controls appropriate to the sensitivity of the data; no method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure.

11. International processing

TripJoiner and its providers may process information in the United States and other countries. Those countries may have different data protection laws. Where law requires a transfer safeguard, we rely on an approved legal mechanism or another lawful basis for the transfer.

12. Your choices and rights

You may update profile information in your account, and you may contact support to request access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability, or an objection where applicable law provides those rights. You may also have a right to appeal our response, opt out of certain sale/sharing or targeted advertising, limit certain sensitive data uses, or complain to a regulator. TripJoiner does not currently sell personal information or use it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We will not discriminate against you for exercising an applicable privacy right.

Because the two sites share one account, deleting your account deletes it on both sites. You can delete it yourself under Sign-in & security in your account settings, or ask Support to do it for you. Deletion removes your sign-in and deletes your profile, photo, contact details and saved items. Messages you sent stay visible to the other person as “Former member”, and booking and review records are kept in de-identified form because organizers, guides and legal bookkeeping need them. Some other records (for example audit trails, or records needed for safety, fraud prevention or an open dispute) may be retained or de-identified as permitted by law. Open bookings, disputes or unpaid amounts may need to be resolved first. Deletion cannot be undone.

13. Children

TripJoiner accounts are for adults who can enter a binding agreement. A parent or legal guardian may include a minor as a trip participant and is responsible for the minor’s information and participation. The service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly allow them to create accounts. If you believe a child provided personal information through an account without appropriate adult involvement, contact Support.

14. Policy changes

We may update this policy as the service or law changes. We will post the revised policy with a new effective date on both sites and provide additional notice when required by law or when a material change warrants it.

15. Contact

Privacy questions can be submitted through Support, or by mail to Hikepilot LLC, 1625 East 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11230, United States. Do not upload identity documents or other sensitive material unless Support specifically requests it through an approved secure workflow.