How we work

The articles are written by the Nighthopper editorial team. Editorial responsibility lies with Saimon Misiaki (Simon Misiak). Who wrote an article is shown below the headline; the author page shows their role, background and all their other articles.

Who’s behind Nighthopper is explained on the About Nighthopper page.

• Research guide: compiled from primary sources. The article is then labelled “Research guide”.
• First-hand report: only with a real trip. When it took place is stated on the article, and the cover image is our own photo. Without both, we can’t publish a first-hand report — nor can one be changed that way later.
• Advice: questions that aren’t tied to one place — likewise from primary sources and with the sources cited.

We start with a list of facts from several primary sources: authorities, transport operators, and the official websites of places and sights. From these we write our own text. We don’t take over text from other websites, not even reworded.

Every source is listed at the end of the article under “Sources and last update”, with the date on which we accessed it.

The outline and first draft of a research guide are produced with the help of AI — from the list of facts, not from a language model’s memory. The information is then checked against its sources. This happens in one of two ways, and the article states under “How this article was made” which one it was:

• “Fact-checked by …”: a person has checked the information against its sources, with name and date.
• “Created with AI” (in the line below the headline): a separate AI review fetched the sources again and compared the information against them. A person then approved the first version, but didn’t check it item by item themselves. Later corrections from the monthly review (see “Keeping it current”) go online without being reviewed by a person. In that case, the article says so under “How this article was made”.

A later change, too, only goes online after one of these checks.

AI doesn’t write experiences. A sentence like “we were there” only appears in a first-hand report, and those only exist with a real trip.

The English versions of our articles are translated from the German originals with AI and are not reviewed by a person. Each English article says so under “How this article was made”; the checks described above refer to the German original, which is authoritative.

Every article states when it was published. Prices, opening times and connections change; that’s why every article is scheduled for another check no later than 90 days after its last one.

Once a month, an automated run fetches the sources of all articles again and looks there for the passages the information is based on. Anything that can no longer be backed up or has expired is checked against the sources by an AI and corrected. We publish these corrections automatically if they pass fixed checks: no new images or advertising links, only limited changes. Anything that doesn’t pass the checks is looked at by a person first.

“Updated” only appears when something in the content has changed — a corrected typo doesn’t make an article any newer. What changed most recently is noted under “Sources and last update”.

We don’t retell entry requirements or the safety situation in our own words. Where they matter, we link to the country page of the German Federal Foreign Office. If there is a warning there that’s relevant to the destination, we also show an AI-generated summary with the date of the version and a link to the original text. We check it against the Foreign Office automatically and continuously: if the Foreign Office changes its advice, we hide the summary until it has been rewritten.

We show our own photos or images under free licences, for example from Wikimedia Commons. The author and licence are shown with each image, and in full in the image credits. We don’t use AI-generated images of real places.

Some articles contain partner links, for example to eSIM plans or transfers. Each of them is labelled “Ad”. An article with ads says so at the top, below the headline, and even its preview in every list carries the note “Contains ads”. If you book through an ad, we receive a commission; your price doesn’t change as a result.

A commission never decides the order in which anything appears. How we sort results and how we make money are explained on separate pages.

The flight search below some articles is our own comparison and not an ad. The “Getting there from Germany” box contains neither prices nor partner names — only distances, compensation under EU law, the time difference and a driving time.

Is something no longer correct? Write to us. We’ll check your message, correct the article and note the change under “Sources and last update”.