About The Boujist

The Boujist is an independent luxury travel publication. Our contributors pay for every hotel we review. We don’t take comps, hosted stays, or paid placements. That’s the whole idea.

Why we work this way

Most luxury hotel coverage is paid for by the hotels it covers. Free nights, hosted press trips, sponsored “guides.” It’s hard to trust a review when the writer never saw the bill.

So we pay the bill. Then we tell you whether it was worth it.

Who writes for us

The Boujist is a small team of contributors who travel the way our readers do. Some live in the places they cover. Many travel with kids, which is why so much of the site is about family travel that doesn’t mean giving up a great hotel. Every piece is edited before it goes out, and our contributors shoot much of the original photography you see on the site.

How we pay for stays

We cover our own stays. Some hotels offer working journalists a media rate, which is a discounted room rate. When a stay was booked at a media rate, the review says so. A discount buys a hotel nothing editorially. It doesn’t get them a review, a spot on a list, or a softer verdict.

Reviews vs. guides

A hotel review means one of our contributors stayed there, like our Pulitzer Amsterdam review or Santa Ponsa Fontenille in Menorca. Our “best hotels” guides combine firsthand stays with research. That research includes rates, site visits, and recommendations from people we trust who live there, like the longtime local behind our Telluride guide.

How the site makes money

We earn a small commission when you book through some of our hotel links, at no extra cost to you. We also run display ads. Neither one affects what we recommend, and no hotel can pay to appear on a list. The full details are in our disclaimer.