Paliparan is your to-go website for the latest aviation, travel, and railway news, destination guides, trip reports, as well as honest airline, train and hotel reviews. We also publish the latest flight ticket deals and other travel promotions, along with all kinds of booking tricks.
The Paliparan website was started by a team of enthusiastic travellers who felt the need to share their knowledge and experiences with the wider world. We are lucky to have visited dozens of beautiful places all over the world. During every single trip we always managed to find useful articles, websites, books, internet forums and social media posts containing tons of useful travel information. These bits of insider advice allowed us to have fantastic, inspiring journeys. Without all this information about hidden gems, booking tricks, airline and hotel reviews and other travel hacks and secrets, we would not have been able to travel as often and would not have gotten the most out of every trip we made.
To earn back some karma points, and to chronicle all our previous trips, we therefore decided to give something back to the community by sharing all this travel knowledge with you – for free!
What does the name Paliparan mean?
Paliparan simply means “airport” in Tagalog, the most widely spoken language in the Philippines, one of our favourite travel destinations in the world. We thought the name was quite catchy and fitting, matching the content on our website!
What are the goals of Paliparan?
As we already explained in the introduction, at Paliparan, we simply want to give something back to the travel community and enthuse others to explore all the fabulous sights on our planet with an open mind. Over the years, we learned so many ‘secret’ tricks allowing us to take a dozen holidays a year, fly in business class for the price of an economy ticket, and see all kinds of amazing destinations that it only felt natural to share some of this knowledge with the wider world.
Travel can have a great influence on each and every person who embarks on a trip. When you travel, you literally and figuratively take a journey, coming into contact with different cultures and people, which enriches your knowledge, empathy and understanding of the world.
In a more literal way, travel also brings in much-needed tourism dollars to countries across the globe, lifting entire communities out of poverty and creating a livelihood for millions. As we do also see the negative effects of overtourism on the world, we hope to contribute to a more conscious way of travelling by highlighting independent travel and destinations off the beaten track far away from the tourist masses.
To translate this vision into more concrete goals, we hope that Paliparan can also be a great source of trusted, independent reviews and destination guides, as well as a place where you can read the most important news developments about travel, aviation, railways, and tourism and transport in general.
Is this site a hobby or a business?
The Paliparan project is foremost a hobby, although one we approach with the utmost seriousness. Our team of writers and contributors all have normal daytime jobs. We use our spare time to travel and to contribute to this website by writing news articles, guides, and reviews. However, we attach great importance to the quality of everything we publish and therefore strive for full accuracy in our reporting, as well as the utmost professionalism, transparency, and integrity in all our work.
This website does generate a small amount of income through affiliate links and advertisements. These affiliate links and the couple of ads you see are vital to us, as the few pounds we earn through them help cover website hosting and other publishing costs.
For example, there might be some affiliate links placed in some of our posts about flight deals. If you click on such a link, we get a small cut if you end up booking a flight ticket or hotel room (don’t worry, this will not impact the price you pay, as the commission we earn solely comes out of the pockets of our partners).
Donations are always welcome too, as they help keep this site online and fund on-the-ground research for our travel articles.
If you want to support us and make a donation, you can click the PayPal link below or buy us a coffee or two through Buy Me a Coffee. Of course, you can also get in touch with us at info [at] paliparan.com.
All reviews and trip reports are solely based on our own experiences on the ground (or in the air, on the open seas, or on railway tracks!) and not on PR handouts. We operate this website as a hobby alongside our regular daytime jobs and are not affiliated with any other entity, ensuring full editorial independence.
Paliparan does not accept any monetary payments in exchange for a positive review. Any partnership with another entity in the travel industry will therefore always be clearly disclosed in our articles to ensure full transparency for our readers. In the same way, we always publish how much we paid out of our own pockets for our tickets or hotel stays in the trip reports and reviews on this website.
Transparency is often lacking in modern travel journalism, as TV shows, newspapers, magazines, and “influencers” are frequently not upfront about whether they paid for a trip themselves, were invited free of charge, or were paid by a business in exchange for a featured article and positive social media posts, leading to potential conflicts of interest.
Talking to other travellers, we know how much these practices are not only hated by the community, but also how such articles and reviews are increasingly distrusted, and therefore ignored by the public. We therefore think that being as open as we can about our thoughts and experiences is the only possible way how we can give trustworthy travel advice!
Advertisement and cooperation opportunities
At Paliparan, we are always open to collaborating with other businesses or organisations in the fields of travel, aviation, and transport – and even those outside these areas – as long as it supports our goal of producing high-quality travel content and providing independent advice to the public.
The Paliparan website also welcomes advertising enquiries and all kinds of collaboration requests. If you are interested in cooperating with us, feel free to send an email to info [at] paliparan.com to inquire about all the possibilities to work with us!
Our editorial team
The Paliparan team exists out of a motley bunch of travellers from a variety of countries, generations and backgrounds. Although we share the same travel passion, we differ when it comes to our favourite destinations, means of travel, trip budgets and preferred holiday style. Thanks to this, we are able to offer you a wide array of reviews, trip reports, travel secrets, and flight deals.
Koen
Editor-in-chief
Koen is the founding father and editor-in-chief of Paliparan. As a professional travel writer specialising in rail and aviation, he travels tens of thousands of miles each year by plane and train, both for work and on his personal holidays. Whether it is horse riding in Kyrgyzstan’s Tian Shan mountains, exploring the backstreets of Bogotá, or sipping a glass of moschofilero in a Greek beachside taverna, Koen loves to immerse himself into the local culture, explore new places and eat and drink himself around the world. Based in Romania, he has a special affinity for Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
You can follow Koen on his travels on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
Koen’s favourite cities: Chania, Luang Prabang, Lviv, Prague.
Koen’s favourite countries: Georgia, Greece, Ireland, Romania.
You can read Koen’s articles here or email him at koen [at] paliparan.com.
Carlo
Contributor
Outside of his daytime job, Carlo loves to travel the world and party until dawn. After getting the travel bug on his first backpacking journey to south-east Asia, Carlo has since travelled extensively across all continents, visiting countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, South Africa and Indonesia.
You can read Carlo’s articles here.