Can You Trust Online Travel Reviews? 4 Golden Tips for Solo Travelers

Ever felt lost at sea with online travel reviews? I'm Cheryl Esch, your solo travel mentor, and I've been there. But fear not! In this auditory adventure, I unpack the secrets to not just surviving but thriving in the world of travel feedback. With my four golden tips, you'll learn to harness the power of reviews and transform them into an invaluable compass for your solo travels. 

This podcast is your ticket to understanding the true value of those stars and comments that flood the internet. I'll share personal tales of accommodations that both soared and sank expectations, and teach you how to spot the genuine gems amidst the noise. We'll navigate through review sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp, dive into the significance of the majority consensus, and understand when to dismiss those pesky negative outliers. No guest required on this journey—just you, me, and the open road of knowledge leading to your next unforgettable solo trip.

Be my first 5 listeners to leave a new review dated March 12th or later and receive a free gift from me. I will create a sample one day itinerary for the city of your choice. Simply screenshot the review you left and message, email or text it to me, then I will be in touch to get more information from you for your free gift.

adventuresredheadrambler@gmail.com
1-214-701-6825 (US)

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey sister travelers. Well, can you trust travel reviews that you read? Well, I'm gonna discuss today four tips on how to use reviews to help with your next trip. Stay tuned Welcome to solo travel adventures, my sisters. Don't let fear hold you back from traveling alone. I want you to gather your courage, listen to inspiring stories and learn how to travel solo while safely navigating new places.

Speaker 1: 0:29

From this show. I'm Cheryl Edge, solo travel advocate and travel coach, and I want you to have a transformative experience when you travel solo. So pack your bags, book your flight and check one more time for that passport. It's time to explore the world. Well, do you use reviews to help you determine whether you will book a place, go to a restaurant, anything like that? Maybe use reviews for buying things on Amazon, right? How well do you trust them and can you trust them? Are or are they bots making some reviews, or are they just family and friends adding reviews for small businesses?

Speaker 1: 1:17

Well, I'm gonna share today four ways that you can use reviews to your advantage. And you know, everybody has an opinion nowadays out there, and so we really have to be careful, when we do read reviews, to look at them objectively, and I would say your first, first thing that you would need to do is make sure you are using a trusted travel site such as TripAdvisor, trustpilot, yelp, google. I also use bookingcom or directly from the site. So those examples would be, for example, airbnb, vrbo are pretty popular accommodation websites and you can, as you're looking at different accommodations, you can see the reviews from that, and I had mentioned in a previous episode about Uber or ride shares and how to also look at those reviews. Right, so they can be helpful. But what do you do with those outliers? Right? So we make sure you use trusted sites first. That way you're getting, you know, thorough information.

Speaker 1: 2:37

The tip number two is actually to look at the overarching, or majority of the consensus, right, what is consistent in those reviews? You're always going to have outliers, right? But what is the overarching? You think of that bell curve, and that's actually how they get to say they have 4.8 out of 5, you know star reviews. So that gives you an idea that the bell curve is on the higher end of the numbers, and most reviews are rated on a scale of 1 to 5. 5 being outstanding, excellent, the best, 1 being really bad. So I would make sure you kind of look at the overarching consensus and then, in addition to that, looking at the outliers, those bad reviews.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Now, everybody is has their opinion, as I mentioned, and it's you know more. So people like to vent and they'll get on and they'll leave a bad review. It's um, it's harder to get people to leave good reviews right. So most people are just, they just get angry for whatever reason, and so then they post this really negative review about a place and it may or may not be true. So we have to look at that and, you know, take it with a grain of salt, possibly, or analyze it to see if you think it is true.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Now I'll give you the example of. There was a resort in Hawaii that got some bad reviews, and some of the bad reviews were that there weren't TVs in the rooms. Well, honestly, if I'm going to Hawaii, I am not watching TV, right, I'm gonna be outside enjoying the beautiful scenery and experiencing the Hawaiian culture. I'm I can always watch TV at home. So, like that, those kind of reviews again, take with a grain of salt it or it could just be someone was just angry. I could have easily when I went to Cabo San Lucas, I could have easily given the resort where I stayed a bad review, but it was a circumstance beyond their control. So a hurricane had come in just a few days before I arrived, and so you know we had, we were given bottled water, we weren't allowed to use the tap water, and so there was some inconveniences. But again, if someone had written a bad review based on that experience, again that's something that the place could not control. That's nature. They couldn't control that. So again, looking at those outliers, you know, see what's true about them, see if you can dissect and analyze, you know, is there some truth to that? Number three tip is in those reviews, in all reviews, whether they're positive or negative.

Speaker 1: 5:46

I like to scam and look for helpful information that is in the review that might not be described, whether it's on that, that company's website or, for example, for an Airbnb, maybe it wasn't mentioned by the owner. I like to look at those, especially as a solo traveler going somewhere I've never been before, I like to look at reviews that might tell me a little bit about the area. Was it safe? What was around that spot that you know? Was it convenient? Because I'm going into a place I've never been, so I don't know what the neighborhood or the area is like. Possibly so little things like that. Or because I am particular about, if I have a kitchen in a place that I'm renting, there's certain utensils I hope they have right and not all Airbnb or VRBO owners list everything out right. They're going to list those major appliances right, but you know, for example, I have seen a review where someone mentioned in an Airbnb unit that they were lacking enough silverware. Now that could be helpful information if you are arriving with a big family and find out there's not enough silverware for us all to sit down and have a meal together. But if you're doing solo, that may not be important. But those little tidbits are what I look for when I skim through the reviews to see if it gives me any more information that might not be in the company website.

Speaker 1: 7:32

And then finally, tip number four, I highly recommend that you leave a helpful review for other solo travelers specifically. So I want you to have that mindset that as you write this review and, as I said, most people will jump on the opportunity to give a negative review, but it will be beneficial to other travelers if you could provide a positive or a helpful review to help those with that mindset of like okay, if I were traveling solo, what would I like to know about this place? Talk about, maybe, if it's a restaurant around the corner that you know might not be on people's radar, that you could mention. You know the authenticness of the food or whatever it is that might attract somebody as someone traveling solo, and that I like those, because that's where I get the most benefit is reviews like that that are kind of going in thinking about okay, what would I want to know and what positive thing can I say, even if it's I don't say, even if it wasn't the best, the best? For example, in Belize I rented an Airbnb, wonderful but one thing that the owner did not mention, and it hence the name, the name of the. You know, you name your places. That place was called Woodpecker Haven or something like I don't know something to that effect. He didn't mention that at 6 am every morning there was a woodpecker pecking at the side of the building every morning. Now, that didn't bother me, mainly because the sun was already up by 6 am when I was in Belize, and so I was already pretty much awake. There's no way you're going to sleep anyways with the bright sunlight, so that could be something that could be mentioned, because if that's something that might bother somebody, it might be nice for them to know, or if they're a morning person, it won't matter, right? So little things like that. Leave in those in the reviews so you can help other travelers get a better sense of what the place or the establishment was really like.

Speaker 1: 10:04

Now, in regards to reviews, this all came up because just a week or so ago actually, by two weeks ago by the time this airs Apple podcast changed up some things and many of my fellow entrepreneurs, podcasters, lost a lot of reviews in the process because of how Apple podcasts changed up. I don't understand what they did, but I thought I would ask my listeners, you folks, for some help, and I have a little gift for you too, if you decide to help me out. So I am offering A sample one day itinerary for a city of your choice for the first five people that leave me a review following March 12th, which is the day this is going to air. So five new reviews, five people. And how to claim that?

Speaker 1: 11:08

Very simple, very easy, once you've left your review, and you have to do that through Apple podcasts. So, unfortunately, if you don't have, say, an Apple account or an Apple phone, you could create one, possibly, but if you already have one set up, it's a little easy to go in there, leave a review for this show and then screenshot it, and then you can either email it to me at adventuresredheadrambler at gmailcom. You could message it to me in either the Facebook group, if you're part of that, or my Instagram, so the travels 50, or you can text it to me. But if you text it to me, leave me your name, because I won't know who's texting me information, and it's 214-7016825. And then I will be in touch with my first five people that do this and discuss what city they want me to create a sample itinerary for them. So I hope this motivates you. It's a free gift. I'm kind of excited to do this for you folks and I hope it blesses you.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Remember, leave reviews that can help fellow travelers. Hey, sister travelers, did this podcast inspire and encourage you or move you to get out there and travel? Wonderful. There are three ways you can thank me. First, one is leave a written review for the show on Apple Podcast. Two, share the show with your sister travelers, your friends, your family. And three subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. And thank you again for listening to the show. Sisters, be fearless, take the leap, get out there and have an adventure.