Postings must be family-friendly. We will remove messages containing objectionable language and images, including but not limited to profanity, obscenity, vulgarity, racial/ethnic slurs, hate speech, personal insults, hostile comments, and threatening language. All the standard curse words are banned, and we will remove messages that contain clever misspellings intended to circumvent the content filters. We will also remove any messages that promote or seek advice on engaging in illegal activities*, and graphic descriptions of death or injuries -- whether due to accidents, negligence or criminal acts.

Illegal activities. Purchase or sale of illegal substances (as per the laws of the destination); contributing to the delinquency of a minor; procuring fake ID; purchase or sale of designer knock-offs, bootleg CDs, DVDs or video games and other black-market items; smuggling items through customs; bribery of officials.

Post carefully and respectfully as posts cannot be edited. This means you can't change your spelling, fix your grammar or take back any off-hand comments you may have made. In a world full of different cultures, experiences, opinions, and preferences, people will always disagree. TripAdvisor encourages active discussions in our Forums, even controversial topics, but debates should always remain civil and respectful as the Forums are not a place for interpersonal disputes. A single profanity, hostile comment or personal insult - even in a well-considered post - can lead to the removal of a post. If you can't offer some friendly advice to a fellow traveler, it may be wiser to move along to the next thread.

Self-promotion, advertisements, solicitation or SPAM is strictly prohibited. We welcome referrals, recommendations and critiques from our members, and have no objection to the inclusion of links to travel-related commercial sites, when the content on the linked site is directly relevant to a discussion underway. If you own, represent or are employed by a travel-related business, please refrain from posting any critical comments about your competitors and avoid posting commercial links and commercial/personal contact information for your business. While you are certainly welcome to share this information when directly requested, please do not proactively volunteer it.

Charitable Organizations We at TripAdvisor are appreciative of our members whose efforts to enrich the lives of others are part of their unique travel experience. However, in order to be fair and consistent with all members, the following guidelines are required:

What is permitted: adding your charity's name, website link, and your affiliation to the charity to your TripAdvisor profile and/or signature line.

What is not permitted: forum posts or topics which have direct or indirect requests for donations, contributions, or those that provide links to charitable organizations.

Also, in order to maintain the integrity of our forums and to combat fraud, we require the following information to be provided within all charity websites: an updated webpage/link which discloses the charity's financial and relevant information. TripAdvisor reserves the right to request proof of documentation for your respective charity affiliation.

Users affiliated with a business or property being discussed must identify themselves as such. Users affiliated with a business or property being discussed must identify themselves as such. While business representatives are welcome to post on our forums, these special visitors should announce their arrival in the forums so that other members are aware of their unique status. Failure to do so may lead to deportation. We believe that our members are entitled to this information so that they can be aware of the potential bias in your comments regarding your business or your competitors. A simple statement like, "Hi, I'm John from XYZ Tours," is sufficient disclosure.

Owners and members of management are also welcome and encouraged to post professional responses to comments regarding their business or services, and make sincere efforts to resolve complaints, but please do not use it as an opportunity to solicit new clientele.

No self-promoting commercial URLs or e-mail addresses. We would never walk into your home and start posting ads for our website, so you shouldn't come on our site and do the same. While we expect and encourage you to provide your contact information when it is requested, please do not share your contact information unnecessarily. You are welcome to include information about your business in the "About Me" text box under "Travel Preferences" in your profile page so that members can have access to it if they are seeking more information about you or your business.

Rule of thumb: If sharing your commercial information and knowledge does not directly relate to and significantly benefit the travel discussion at hand, then refrain from sharing it or your post may be removed.

Destination-specific forums are for travel-related discussions. They are not chat rooms. For the active users, we love that you find friends in our forum! However, please help us keep the destination forums as relevant as possible. As noted earlier, we encourage you to use private messaging - or the Off-Topic Chatter Forum - as the best place for daily check-ins with all of your forum buddies. Such messages or threads posted in destination forums, regrettably, are subject to closure or removal.*

In addition, all of the following topics will be removed or closed with a reminder notice that the content is not travel-related.

• Listings that include real estate purchases, apartment rentals or solicitations for either. Exception to this rule: Discussions providing short-term relocation advice is acceptable provided it remains relevant to travelers to that destination. Orientation to neighborhoods, travel logistics, visa requirements, or even a post-arrival "thanks, everyone" update are welcome, whereas asking for help finding roommates, buying/selling furniture or ongoing personal updates are not considered travel-related.
• Search for employment or offers of employment
• People searches (looking for a long-lost friend or relative, or that cute person you met in a bar) or genealogical research
• Calls for boycott of any destination
• Social commentary and political debates that have no direct relevance to travel
• Petitions or calls for government action in local politics or criminal investigations
• Personal ads and questions or advice on finding dates or sexual partners
• Surveys, polls and research for future publication (or your geography homework)
• Multiple messages containing identical or nearly identical text. This is considered spam and when we discover it, we will remove all copies.

* Special note: As the number of posts removed from a thread increases, the likelihood of that thread being closed or entirely deleted also increases.

Every person is limited to one screen name. Consider your screen name to be your passport to the TripAdvisor Travel Forums. Every person is limited to one forums screen name; members with multiple screen names will be banned. Do not create screen names to impersonate other members or TripAdvisor staff, or you'll quickly be deported.

Harassment of other members will not be tolerated. The Forums can only flourish if all members can feel welcome and safe to share their opinions openly. Please avoid argumentative off-topic exchanges, multiple messages targeting any user(s) for insults or personal comments, or challenging any other user's right to participate on our site. Sarcastic asides and snide comments should be kept to yourself. Ignore people we don't want to talk to and avoid undue electronic confrontation.

Do not post contact or personal information about other members without permission. We ask all users to respect the privacy of others, and refrain from exposing the real names, home address, phone numbers, e-mail address of any other member. If you include your own personal information in a forum post, it will be viewed and potentially used by any and all who see it... including people you'd probably rather not hear from. Note: We do allow users to include the names and contact information of business representatives or property owners in their comments, critiques and reviews of that business, property or service.

No posting on behalf of TripAdvisor. Screen names and forum posts should not contain anything that would indicate you are a member of the TripAdvisor staff. To avoid misinterpretation or quoting out of context, private correspondence with TripAdvisor staff should not be reproduced in the public forums -- if we want information to be public knowledge, we will publish it under an official TripAdvisor announcement or sticky topic.

Feedback about TripAdvisor should be sent directly to TripAdvisor. We love to hear about your thoughts on TripAdvisor, the forums, and our policies, but the forum is not the best place to share it. In most cases, feedback takes the conversation off-topic from travel. More importantly, we may not even see your comments in the forums, unless or until someone reports them to us as off-topic or inappropriate for the forums. If you have comments about TripAdvisor or suggestions on things we could improve, the quickest way to do so is through our feedback form.

No posting copyrighted material or content published elsewhere. We ask members not to post any information that they do not have permission to make available, including but not limited to: copyrighted material from any online or printed publication (news agencies, magazines, books, travel guides, television or radio program transcripts), trademarks, passwords, subscription/members-only discount codes, confidential information, or the intellectual property of any other individual or business. This restriction includes reproduction of your own reviews, trip reports, travel advice, journals or blogs that you have previously published elsewhere, as well as content written by any other authors. We seek to publish original content, and avoid issues of ownership and copyright-infringement from any other source.

No HTML or Javascript. Our forums software will not accept HTML formatting, Javascript, animated gifs or photo attachments in the body of a forum message. However, URLs in forums posts will automatically be hyperlinked. Note that technical measures are in place to prevent abuse of this feature. Posts with link spam will be removed.

You must be at least 13 years old to post. This is not something we decided arbitrarily - it's the law.