How we research and verify listings
Every listing is compiled from the operator’s own published material and public records, rewritten in our own words, and dated. We are paid by operators for qualified enquiries, never for placement or ranking.
Last updated 31 July 2026
The process
- 01
Sourcing
Candidate properties come from public sources: operator websites, provincial and territorial tourism registries, licensing and permit lists, guide association directories, and published trade coverage. We do not buy scraped datasets, and we do not accept payment to be added to the directory.
- 02
Extraction
Every field is read from the operator's own published material — rates pages, package PDFs, season calendars, FAQ pages. Each value is recorded with the URL it came from. Anything behind a login, a paywall, or a robots.txt disallow is skipped rather than worked around.
- 03
Normalisation
Free-text is normalised into a controlled vocabulary so that properties are genuinely comparable: 4 rate bands, 52 amenity values, 7 access types. Descriptions are rewritten in our own words — we never republish an operator's marketing copy.
- 04
Flagging what we could not confirm
Where a figure is inferred rather than published — most often a typical per-person rate assembled from package prices — it is flagged as estimated and shown as such on the listing page. Fields we could not confirm at all are listed explicitly under "How we verified this" rather than quietly filled in.
- 05
Dating and re-verification
Every record carries a last-verified date. Properties are re-checked on a rolling schedule and re-verified ahead of each booking season, because season windows and rates in this category move every year.
- 06
Corrections
Operators can claim a listing and submit corrections, and we act on them. A claimed listing is not a better-ranked listing — claiming changes the accuracy of the record, not its position.
How we make money
Lodgewise is funded by lead generation. When you send an availability request, we review it by hand and offer it to the operator you selected. If they take it, they pay us a fee based on the estimated value of the trip — currently 3.0% of the estimated booking value. If they decline or do not respond within 18 hours, we may offer it to up to 2 similar operators, one at a time.
You never pay us anything, we take no commission on your booking, and your details are never sold to advertisers, data brokers or mailing lists. We also do not use affiliate links — outbound links to operators are tracked only so we can show an operator how much traffic we sent them.
Who does this work
Ben Taft · Photographer & filmmaker
I capture the places that make people want to go. I specialize in video, photo, virtual tour and drone content for hospitality, adventure travel and ecotourism — from remote alpine lodges and luxurious resorts to off-grid living. Every listing and story on this site is shot and written first-hand, to help you cut through the noise and spend your limited time on truly special experiences.
Questions about our methodology
Do operators pay to be listed?
No. Inclusion is editorial and free. Operators pay only for qualified enquiries we send them, and sponsored placement — which is always labelled — pins a listing higher in a grid without changing the underlying research, the comparison table figures, or whether a property is included at all.
How do you decide the order of listings?
Sponsored listings are pinned first and labelled. Everything below that is ordered by how recently we verified the record, which is a proxy for how complete and current it is. Order is never sold beyond the labelled sponsored slots.
What do you do with my enquiry?
When you submit an availability request we share your name, contact details, dates, party size and message with the operator you selected. If that operator declines or does not respond, we may offer your enquiry to up to two similar operators, one at a time. We do not sell your details to advertisers, data brokers or mailing lists.
How do you handle errors?
Email hello@lodgewise.ca with the listing and the correction. We check it against a published source, update the record, and reset the last-verified date. Corrections are free and we do not require a business relationship to accept one.
Do you accept free stays or hosted trips?
No. Nothing in this directory is written on the basis of a hosted stay, and no operator receives advance sight of what we publish about them.
Found something wrong?
Corrections are welcome from anyone — operators, guests, or competitors. Email hello@lodgewise.ca with the listing and what is wrong, and we will check it against a published source.