Cookie Policy

What cookies are

A cookie is a small text file that a website asks your browser to store on your device. It lets the site recognise your browser on a later request. Similar technologies — local storage, pixels and device identifiers — do much the same job, and everything in this policy applies to them too.

Site counts and recent searches

Valid city routes submitted through Plan My Trip appear in Recent Trip Ideas without a sharing popup. Only the city pair, trip length and search day are public, for up to 30 days. No name, browser identifier, exact search time or departure date is published. Site counting preferences below are separate from this public feature and advertising consent.

Cookies used on this site

1. Strictly necessary

Our host may use security cookies to deliver the site. The stp_counts cookie remembers your site-counting preference for up to one year. The previous stp_activity_v2 and stp_activity_v3 sharing cookies are no longer used. Planning works when optional measurement is declined.

2. Advertising

Advertising is currently disabled. If enabled, Google AdSense and its partners may set cookies on eligible destination guides. They are used to select which ads to show, to cap how often you see the same ad, and to measure whether an ad was viewed or clicked. Where personalised advertising is used, these cookies may draw on your browsing on other sites.

Google explains how it uses cookies in advertising on its partner sites page.

3. Analytics and performance

Basic site counts run separately from public trip sharing. The stp_browser cookie holds a random signed identifier for up to one year, inaccessible to page scripts. It prevents refreshes and return visits in the same browser from adding another visitor. Trips planned counts each Plan My Trip button activation, including unsuccessful attempts; request retries count only once. We store keyed hashes, not IP addresses or travel details, for deduplication. You can turn counting off above; stp_counts remembers that choice for one year. We respect Do Not Track, Global Privacy Control and your separate stp_counts preference. Older activity-sharing choices do not control counts or recent searches. Cookie deletion, expiry or a different browser can count a person again. Blocked cookies or network failures can prevent counting. Turning counts off does not subtract past totals. These statistics help us understand use of the planner.

Our host may separately measure page views, loading times and errors. These first-party counters do not track you across other websites.

4. Browser storage and external services

The planner uses session storage to reuse a generated plan for up to one hour. Earlier saved plans can remain in local storage until you clear this site's browser data. External photos and weather icons may send technical request information to their image providers. Google Maps opens only when you follow a map link; we do not embed Google Maps. External websites have their own cookie policies.

Pages without advertising

We do not show advertising on this page, on the Privacy Policy, Terms, Disclaimer, About or Contact pages, or on the trip planner output screen. If enabled, advertising is limited to eligible destination guide pages.

How to control cookies

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Every major browser lets you do this, usually under Privacy or Site Settings:

• Chrome — Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies
• Safari — Settings → Privacy → Block all cookies
• Firefox — Settings → Privacy & Security → Enhanced Tracking Protection
• Edge — Settings → Cookies and site permissions

Blocking advertising and analytics cookies will not prevent you from reading the guides or using the trip planner. Blocking strictly necessary cookies may cause parts of the site to misbehave.

Opting out of personalised advertising

You can turn off personalised advertising without blocking cookies entirely:

• Google Ads Settings — controls Google's ad personalisation
• aboutads.info — industry opt-out for participating vendors
• Network Advertising Initiative — another multi-vendor opt-out

When advertising is enabled, opting out of personalisation does not necessarily remove ads. Our measurement choice above is separate from advertising consent and is not a Google-certified consent platform.

Changes

We will revise this page as our use of cookies changes, and update the date above. Questions can go to kishlaykumarkashyap@gmail.com.

This policy forms part of the SmartTripPlan Privacy Policy.