This website is owned and maintained by Lisa Gerard-Sharp. For legal purposes, Lisa is the “publisher” of all texts and images which appear on this website. That does do not mean that Lisa holds all rights in texts and images on this website. More on that below.

Lisa Gerard-Sharp is a travel media professional. She’s on the road a lot, but her principal place of business is in the United Kingdom. You can use the contact form on this website to get in touch with Lisa. Or just send her an e-mail to [email protected].

On this page, you’ll find the bits and pieces of legal stuff that help keep the world wide web a safe and nice place to wander around. Let’s keep this short.

1. Credit where credit is due

1.1 Prose

This website incorporates text, the great majority of which was written by Lisa Gerard-Sharp. But writing words is not the same as owning them. Travel writers often cede rights to their publishers. That’s the way the publishing world works. So Lisa would like to acknowledge the many publishers with whom she has worked over the years and thank them for granting her permission to reproduce extracts from various books and articles on this website.

1.2 Images

This website includes images, the great majority of which have been taken by Lisa Gerard-Sharp. Images in the photo galleries (in the photography section of this website) were without exception shot by Lisa. Take a look and even laugh. But please don’t steal them. If you want to discuss terms for purchase of images, just contact Lisa.

Some images on this website were supplied by Gardner & Kries GbR, the editorial bureau which publishes hidden europe magazine, either from their own collection or under licence from photo libraries. The images which appear on the book covers in the books section of this website were not taken by Lisa Gerard-Sharp; those images are included on this website by permission of the respective publishers. The images in articles featured on the journalism section of this website do include some of Lisa's photography. Where that is the case, Lisa is mentioned as "photographer" in the relevant "project role" listing.

1.3 Website

This website was created using ProcessWire, an open source CMF and CMS written in PHP.

2. Privacy Issues

2.1 Data Protection

Lisa-Gerard Sharp is fully committed to protecting your personal information and will keep the information you entrust to her safely and securely. She will never sell or share your personal information with third parties.

For the purpose of the United Kingdom’s Data Protection Act 1998, the data controller is Lisa-Gerard-Sharp, 15 Spencer Hill, Flat 2, Wimbledon, London, SW19 4PA.

2.2 Use of cookies

This website uses cookies. A cookie is a text file which contains a small amount of information. It is downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you first visit this website. Subject to the proviso in the following two paragraphs, none of the cookies on this website are provided by third parties.

There are two cookies on this website that collect information from visitors to help Lisa improve her website. They enable her to trace errors on this website and inform her about how this website is used. This information is anonymous and cannot be used to identify you personally. These cookies are set by the analytics software ‘Piwik’ and start with ‘_pk_id’ and ‘_pk_ses’. Piwik is self-hosted software. This means that all data collected stays with Lisa. No analytics information is remitted to third parties (this is different from websites using certain other tools such as Google Analytics).

The only other cookie set by this website is called 'wire’ and is required by ProcessWire (the underlying CMS) for the system to operate properly. If you wish to delete individual cookies from your computer but are unsure how to do it, have a look at the wikipedia entry for cookies.

3. External Links

This site includes many links to the websites of external organisations. These are provided as a service to you, but Lisa has no responsibility for or influence over the content of such third-party sites. A link does not imply any endorsement of the content of such sites.

4. Disclaimer

This website contains extracts from books and articles written by Lisa. Her writing may inspire you to embark on journeys or activities described in Lisa’s work. But Lisa cannot be held responsible for any misleading content or factual errors – not least because circumstances changes and even the most perfectly researched piece of travel writing may quickly become obsolete. So take care, check details along the way and remember Lisa’s maxim: “Never trust a travel writer.”

5. Disclosure

This website contains no advertising. Where individual businesses are commended, that is because Lisa Gerard-Sharp really believes that they are doing a great job. A plug cannot be secured by financial inducement!

6. Comments

The blog section of this website includes provision for comments. Use it wisely! No slander, please. Say nice things if you can. And don’t include gratuitous links back to your business. This website is Lisa’s shop-window, not yours. Lisa Gerard-Sharp reserves the right not to approve for publication any comment which she judges to run counter to the spirit of this section.

Lisa is very happy to answer queries on these legal notices. Of course, she’ll be even happier to respond to enquiries about her writing and photography. Do get in touch.

That’s the end of the legal stuff and notices! Now let’s all do something more interesting.