Who is responsible
ExploreNorden is an independent Nordic travel-guide project operated from Norway. It is responsible for the editorial service and the trip-preference tools described in this notice.
Data, purposes and legal bases
The trip finder processes the choices you submit, including budget range, trip length, season, interests, pace, departure region and traveller type. The itinerary tool processes a destination, number of days and pace. These values are used only to produce the response you request and are not attached to an account or deliberately retained as a saved profile.
Hosting and security infrastructure necessarily receives technical request information such as IP address, date and time, requested URL, browser information and diagnostic or security events. The purpose is to deliver the site, prevent abuse and maintain reliability. ExploreNorden relies on legitimate interests for service delivery, security and basic operational diagnostics.
ExploreNorden does not ask for special-category data, precise location, passport details, payment information or health information. Please do not enter personal or sensitive information into the trip tools.
Cookies and local storage
ExploreNorden uses browser storage for requested interface preferences, saved guides and journeys. It does not currently load display-advertising technology or advertising cookies.
| Item | Purpose | Duration | Optional? |
|---|---|---|---|
| explorenorden-theme | Remembers the light or dark theme you selected. | Until you clear browser storage. | No—requested interface preference. |
| explorenorden-saved-guides | Keeps the guide and activity shortlist you explicitly save on this device. | Until you remove the items or clear browser storage. | No—requested shortlist feature. |
| explorenorden-journeys-v2 | Stores journey dates, order and notes you explicitly create on this device. | Until you delete the journeys or clear browser storage. | No—requested trip-board feature. |
The site sends limited first-party product events—such as a guide being saved, an itinerary being created or an official source being opened—to ExploreNorden's own aggregate event store. The records contain the feature name, page path and guide identifier, not names, email addresses, precise location, trip-form answers, advertising identifiers or cross-site profiles. No analytics cookie is set.
Hosting, maps, images and other recipients
The site is delivered through OpenAI’s Sites hosting service and Cloudflare infrastructure. Those providers may process technical request data for delivery, security and reliability under their own contractual and privacy terms.
Pages may request landscape images from Unsplash or Wikimedia Commons, map tiles from OpenStreetMap, road-route calculations from the public OSRM service, and current weather context from Open-Meteo. When those resources load, the relevant provider receives ordinary web-request information, including your IP address and browser details. External source links take you to independent websites whose own privacy notices apply.
- OpenAI privacy policy
- Cloudflare privacy policy
- OpenStreetMap Foundation privacy policy
- Open-Meteo terms and privacy information
- OSRM project information
- Wikimedia privacy policy
- Unsplash privacy policy
Some providers may process data outside Norway or the EEA. Their policies describe the transfer safeguards they use. ExploreNorden does not sell personal data.
Automated recommendations
The current trip finder uses a transparent, deterministic scoring method. It compares your selected interests, season, pace, budget and trip length with editorial destination records, then creates templated explanations. The itinerary tool similarly combines editorial records using fixed rules. No live third-party generative-AI model currently receives your answers.
These suggestions do not make legal or similarly significant decisions about you. They are planning prompts only. Any future external AI provider will be identified here before activation, together with the data sent, purpose, retention and available choices.
Retention and security
ExploreNorden does not intentionally store trip answers after the response is returned. Necessary device preferences remain in your browser for the periods described above. Hosting and security providers may retain technical logs for their documented operational and security periods.
If you previously joined the discontinued email list, you may contact ExploreNorden to request deletion of the historic record. If you choose private journey sync, the signed-in account identifier, dates and journey contents remain in the site database until you delete them. Device-only journeys are not uploaded unless you use cloud save.
Reasonable technical measures are used to limit access and keep the service available, but no internet service can guarantee absolute security.
Your rights
Where the GDPR, UK GDPR or similar law applies, you may have rights to access, correct, erase, restrict, port or object to personal-data processing, and to withdraw consent without affecting earlier lawful processing. Because the service has no accounts, ExploreNorden may need information from you to locate any relevant technical record.
You can complain to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet) or, where applicable, your local authority such as the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.
Contact and changes
Send privacy questions or rights requests to hello@explorenorden.com. Material changes to the site’s data practices will be reflected in this notice and its effective date.
See also the terms of use, editorial policy and commercial disclosure.