See Peru through the eyes of the women who call it home on Intrepid’s brand-new Women’s Expedition.

With an expert local leader out front and a small group of like-minded travellers by your side, this trip gives you a unique insight into Peru’s culture and traditions.

Part of Intrepid’s Women’s expedition range, this eight-day adventure has been thoughtfully designed to support local women in tourism while delivering immersive experiences specifically for women travellers.

You’ll traverse the lesser-known Chinchero to Urquillos trail in the Peruvian Andes alongside an all-female crew, spend time in an Andean village learning about daily life, take part in a traditional textile workshop led by local women and experience a spiritual cleansing ritual guided by a female shaman.

Find your adventure

When I was checking hostels for my stay in Nepal, I checked both on Booking[com] and the original site of the hostel.

I reached out to them for the complimentary stay in exchange of promotion. But I didn’t get a reply, but the point of this edition is you should understand what is the point of reaching out to the owners directly help and why it’s a bad idea. Let’s start.

When you plan a stay in a new city, the search usually begins on a hotel booking platform. These websites make it easy to explore many properties in one place. You can compare prices, see photos, read guest reviews, and understand where each hotel sits on the map.

Once the hotel is selected, another decision appears. The booking can happen through the platform you used for research, or it can happen directly through the hotel’s own website.

Both options can work well, but the experience around the reservation may look slightly different depending on which path you choose.

Booking platforms solve the discovery problem. Instead of opening dozens of hotel websites, travellers can view many options at once. This makes it much easier to understand what exists in a city and how different hotels compare with each other.

Guest reviews also play an important role. Reading the experiences of other travellers can reveal details that official hotel photos do not show. Information about noise levels, service quality, and room conditions often appears in those reviews.

Another advantage is convenience. Platforms keep the entire booking process in one place. Confirmations, payment details, and reservation records are all stored inside the same account.

For travellers who want a quick overview of the market, platforms provide an efficient starting point.

While booking platforms are useful for discovery, the reservation itself comes through an intermediary. The hotel receives the booking from the platform rather than directly from the guest.

This arrangement can sometimes create small limitations. Communication with the hotel may pass through the platform’s messaging system instead of direct contact. Changes to reservations may depend on platform policies rather than the hotel’s own flexibility.

None of these issues appears in every stay, but they occasionally create extra steps when adjustments are needed.

When a reservation happens directly through the hotel’s website or reservation desk, the relationship begins immediately with the property itself. The hotel keeps the full revenue from the booking instead of sharing a portion with a platform.

Because of that, some hotels place greater value on direct reservations. Guests who book directly may find it easier to communicate special requests such as room preferences, early check-in, or late check-out.

Direct contact also means questions about the stay can be answered quickly because the conversation happens directly with the hotel team.

Booking directly with hotels also has a drawback. Comparing many properties becomes harder because each hotel sits on its own website. Travellers often need to open multiple pages to evaluate different options.

Direct booking also removes the ability to see large volumes of guest reviews in one place. Some hotel websites show reviews, but they rarely present the same breadth of feedback that booking platforms provide.

Many experienced travellers combine both approaches. Booking platforms help them explore options, understand prices, and read reviews across different hotels. Once the right property becomes clear, the reservation sometimes moves directly to the hotel’s own website.

This approach allows travellers to benefit from both systems.

The hotel itself does not change based on where the reservation is made, but the relationship around the booking sometimes does. Understanding how these two paths work helps travellers choose the one that fits their situation best.

Thanks for reading. See you on Saturday!

See ya!

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