r/travel rules, stats, and what to post

r/travel is a community about exploring the world. People come here to share pictures, questions, and stories from their trips, and to ask for advice on planning them. The description says any good content is welcome, but it also warns you to read the rules, the pinned announcements, and the wiki before posting, because there are no warnings given out at this volume. The rules point everyday questions elsewhere, so flights go to r/flights, award bookings to r/awardtravel, moving abroad to r/expat, and photography to r/itookapicture. What is left is a room of actual travelers swapping real experiences, real itineraries, and real advice, and the moderators work hard to keep it that way.

The rule that decides everything for a marketer is “No clickbait, blogspam, self-promotion, personal requests, trading, selling, or begging,”. It removes and bans self promotion of every kind, including blogs, vlogs, social media, surveys, market research, side projects, AMAs, and anything disguised as genuine discussion. “No spam” adds that posts made just for promotional or marketing purposes are out, though simple posts or links to gear or sites are not automatically advertising. “Absolutely no AI” is the harshest rule in the list: a first offense gets a 28 day ban and a second one is permanent, and it covers posting AI content, citing AI sources, suggesting AI, or even asking the community to review an AI generated itinerary. “Avoid repetitive/off topic questions” kills generic engagement bait and questions the FAQ already answers. “No low effort posts” requires at least two options on any itinerary or routing question and bans prediction questions. “Be as specific as possible” removes vague posts, and “Photos - Include a descriptive title and context” removes clickbait titles and hands out a permanent ban for posting pictures that are not your own.

A good post here is a specific question or a genuine contribution from your own experience. If you ask for advice, follow rule “Be as specific as possible”: say where you are starting, your dates, your budget, your interests, and what you have already liked or disliked. If you want help with an itinerary or routing, rule “No low effort posts” says you must present at least two options, so build those yourself and show your work. Rule “Check Google or direct source before posting” means you should search the subreddit and the wiki first, then say what you found and where it was unclear. If you share photos, they must be your own, with a descriptive title and real travel context. For a founder, the honest play is to participate as a traveler first. Answer other people's questions with your own experience, build a history of positive contributions, and only start threads that a traveler would find useful with no product angle attached. If you ever link to gear or a site, keep it incidental and clearly not the point of the post, because rule “No spam” only tolerates that when promotion is not the purpose.

Do not post your blog, vlog, social accounts, app, survey, side project, or any self promotion, because rule “No clickbait, blogspam, self-promotion, personal requests, trading, selling, or begging,” removes it and bans you, and it explicitly catches promotion disguised as genuine discussion. Do not use AI for any part of your post, including writing, rewriting, proofreading, or asking people to review an AI generated itinerary, because rule “Absolutely no AI” starts at a 28 day ban and a second offense is permanent. Do not ask vague questions, mystery country questions, or prediction questions about prices or weather, because rules “Be as specific as possible” and “No low effort posts” remove those. Do not repost common questions covered by the FAQ, and skip karma farming style prompts like asking people for hidden gems. Do not post stock photos or clickbait album titles like hidden gem or underrated, and never post pictures that are not your own, because that is a permanent ban. Do not bring politics, racism, or insults into the thread, and do not wade into off topic arguments even if you think you are right. Finally, do not post complaints or rants from a fresh account with no history, because those will not be approved.

The “Absolutely no AI” rule with a 28 day first strike and a permanent second strike is the strictest AI policy I have seen in any community we cover, and it even bans asking people to proofread AI text. That tells you exactly what this room values: real trips, real receipts, real humans. My advice is simple. If you cannot write your post from your own travel experience without any tool helping, you are not ready to post here yet.