Fair Travel Isn’t a Switch — It’s a Transition
The way people discover and book travel has been changing for years.
For a long time, commission-heavy platforms shaped how accommodation and experiences were found. They made travel feel convenient and searchable, but the trade-off was often hidden: weaker direct relationships, less control for independent businesses, and less transparency about where money goes.
Today, more travellers want a clearer connection to the places they visit — and more businesses want to be discovered without losing a percentage of every booking. But that shift isn’t instant. And it isn’t simple.
Fair travel, in practice, is not something you switch on overnight.
It’s a transition.
The reality of booking direct
Booking direct can create healthier relationships on both sides. It can mean clearer communication, fairer economics for independent businesses, and a stronger sense of accountability.
But travel discovery still has a friction point: being found.
Many independent stays and locally rooted providers rely on large platforms because those platforms dominate attention. Leaving commission-based systems behind often means rebuilding visibility from scratch — and that takes time.
This is why the idea of transition matters. Change happens gradually, through better alternatives, clearer information, and steady shifts in behaviour — not through purity tests.
What Self Guided Travel is — and isn’t
Self Guided Travel is an independent, place-based travel publication published by ahchoo.
We do not operate tours, take bookings, or process payments. We do not act as a travel agent or intermediary. We don’t exist to own the transaction.
Instead, we focus on documenting routes, landscapes, and the places shaped by them — and, where relevant, connecting readers to independent businesses within that context.
Our work is built around place. Discovery happens through geography: trails, protected landscapes, regions, towns, and the locally rooted stays that sit naturally within them.
When we link to a business, the relationship remains direct: the reader is sent to the provider’s own website or contact details. Any booking or enquiry happens with them, not through us.
Why we’re open about the transition
Fair travel is often talked about as if it already exists as a finished system. In reality, most people — and most businesses — are navigating something more practical: partial change.
Some travellers book direct when they can, and use platforms when they can’t.
Some businesses depend on third-party sites for visibility while working towards a healthier balance.
We think it’s better to be honest about that reality than to pretend travel has already been “fixed”.
That’s why our Fair Travel Policy is clear about what we do and don’t do, how we operate, and what commission-free discovery means in practice. It recognises that:
- Direct relationships don’t replace everything overnight
- Not every business can shift at the same speed
- Long-term discovery is part of making change possible
Self Guided Travel isn’t a finish line. It’s part of the wider movement towards something fairer and more transparent.
A quieter, longer-term model of discovery
Rather than optimising for transactions, the focus is on:
- Long-term presence instead of short-term conversion
- Place-led context instead of generic listings
- Commission-free discovery instead of percentage-based dependency
For independent businesses, this means being found through the landscapes they belong to — rather than being reduced to price, availability, and ranking.
For readers, it means clearer pathways to engage directly, understand where money goes, and choose travel that feels more connected to place.
Being part of the change
We don’t expect travellers to change habits overnight.
And we don’t expect independent businesses to abandon existing systems instantly.
What we do believe in is momentum — built through better information, better discovery, and more direct relationships over time.
By documenting places carefully and linking readers directly to independent businesses where relevant, Self Guided Travel plays a small but meaningful role in that broader transition.
