Terms of Service

This agreement is made between you and the owner of backpack.travel (the "Site", "we") and sets out the terms for using the site and all of its services: the map, the country and city reference, the blog, routes, the trip planner, private messages and photo uploads.

The agreement takes effect the moment you tick the corresponding box during registration. If you do not agree with the terms, do not register and do not use the services that require an account.

You must be at least 14 years old to register. You are responsible for keeping your password safe and for everything done through your account.

Registering with someone else's details or impersonating another person is not allowed. You may delete your account at any time — write to hello@backpack.travel.

User content means everything you publish on the site: photographs, texts, descriptions and edits of articles about countries, cities and places, comments, routes, messages and profile details.

By publishing content, you confirm that:

• you are the author of the content, or you hold rights and permissions sufficient to publish it on the site;
• publishing it infringes no copyright, related, trademark or other rights of third parties;
• where people appear in a photograph, you have obtained their consent to publication in every case the law requires it;
• the content is not among the prohibited categories (clause 5).

Responsibility for user content lies with the person who published it. The Site does not review content in advance and cannot establish the origin of every file.

Copyright stays with you. By publishing content you grant the Site a free, non-exclusive licence to use it for as long as it remains published and in every country: to display it on the site's pages and mobile versions, to include it in collections and feeds, to announce it in the project's official channels with a credit to you, and to process it technically — compression, format conversion, cropping for thumbnails, watermarking.

Delete the content and the licence ends. Copies that have by then spread into search engine caches and third-party services are beyond our control.

The Site's own materials — editorial texts, design, the database of countries, cities and places — belong to the Site and its authors. The terms for using them are set out on the Copyright and DMCA page.

• photographs and texts belonging to others without the rights holder's permission;
• content that breaks the law: extremist material, incitement to hatred, calls to violence;
• pornography and any sexual material involving minors;
• personal data of third parties without their consent;
• advertising, spam, bulk mailings and engagement manipulation;
• malicious code and links to it;
• knowingly false information about safety, visa rules or prices that could mislead a traveller.

In respect of user content the Site acts as an information intermediary within the meaning of article 1253.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation: it provides the means to publish content but does not initiate the publication, does not determine the recipient and does not alter the content in substance — technical processing (compression, format conversion, thumbnail generation) does not count as alteration.

We do not pre-moderate uploaded files, and we neither know nor ought to know that any particular item infringes anyone's rights until we are told.

On receiving a substantiated notice from a rights holder we take the necessary and sufficient measures — removing the content or restricting access to it — under article 15.7 of Federal Law No. 149-FZ. How to file a notice is described on the Copyright and DMCA page.

We may remove content or restrict access to it without prior notice if it breaches clause 5 or if a substantiated notice has been received about it. The author is notified after removal.

Accounts that repeatedly publish other people's content, or otherwise breach this agreement systematically, are blocked.

If you believe a removal was a mistake, send a counter-notice to hello@backpack.travel. After review the content may be restored.

If claims, lawsuits or demands are brought against the Site by third parties because of content you published — rights holders, people shown in photographs, government authorities — you undertake to settle them yourself and at your own expense, and to reimburse the Site for the losses it incurs as a result: compensation awarded, fines, court costs and legal fees.

Visa rules, document requirements, safety ratings, drone import rules, driving rules and prices for accommodation, transport and food are published for reference. They are compiled from open sources and are changed by states and carriers without warning.

This is not legal advice and not a guarantee. Check entry conditions on the official websites of consulates and border services before you travel. The Site is not liable for the consequences of decisions taken on the basis of information published here.

The Site is provided "as is". We do not guarantee uninterrupted operation or the preservation of uploaded content — keep your own backups of files that matter to you.

Paid features and subscriptions are charged at the rates in force at the time of payment. We may change which features are free and which are paid.

What data we collect, why, and how long we keep it is described in the Privacy Policy, which forms an integral part of this agreement.

We may amend this agreement. The version in force is always available on this page and its date is shown in the header. For material changes we will ask you to accept the new version at your next sign-in.

Continuing to use the site after a new version is published means you accept it.

This agreement is governed by the law of the Russian Federation. Disputes are settled by negotiation; a pre-court claim procedure is mandatory — 30 days from the date a claim is received at hello@backpack.travel.

Contact us: hello@backpack.travel, or the Contacts page.