Cookies.

The short of it

A cookie is a small note a website leaves in your browser so it can recognise you on the next page. Ours keep you signed in, protect the forms you fill in, and remember things you have chosen to save. None is for advertising, none is from an analytics company, and nothing here follows you to another site. Visits to the site are counted without any cookie at all.

Because each one is needed for something you asked the site to do, we do not ask you to accept them. Every one is listed below, with what it is for and how long it lasts.

Signing in, and keeping forms safe

hidden_scotland_session keeps track of you from one page to the next, and of anything you have put in your basket. It goes when you close your browser, or after a while without use.

XSRF-TOKEN makes sure a form sent from your browser really came from our site, and not from another site pretending to be you. It lasts as long as the session does.

remember_web, followed by a string of letters and numbers, keeps you signed in for ninety days, so you are not sent a new link every visit. Signing out removes it.

The cookie notice

hs_cookies_seen remembers that you have read the notice about cookies, so it is not shown again for a year.

Remembering what you save, without an account

hs_reader is set only when you save a place, answer one of our questions, love a post or give us a postcode, so the site can remember it on your next visit. It holds a random number and nothing else; the record it points to has the outward half of a postcode at most and never a name. It lasts a year from the day it was set. Reading the site never sets it.

Trips and days out

crew and saw, each followed by the number of a trip, are set when you open a trip somebody has invited you to by link, so it knows you when you come back. They last a year.

route_copies remembers your own copies of our days out, so you can find them again without an account. It lasts a year.

Kept on your own device

Some things are kept in your browser's own storage rather than in a cookie, and they stay there. They are where you got to in an article, the size you like the words and whether sound is on. They are also the trip you are putting together, where you like to start a day out from, and your name and email if you have given them to the Desk. Nothing here is sent to us unless you send it.

Other companies

The lettering on every page comes from Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts. Pages with a map load Google Maps, which may set Google's own cookies, and Google's privacy policy explains them.

When you pay, you are on Stripe's or Shopify's own pages, and they set their own cookies there.

Signing in with Google or Facebook takes you to their pages, where their cookies apply.

Turning them off

Your browser's settings can clear cookies or refuse them. The site still works for reading if you do, but you will not be able to sign in, keep a basket or save anything.

If this changes

If we ever add a cookie that is not needed for something you asked for, it will be listed here first, and we will ask before setting it.

Last updated 13 October 2026.