@Michael: I have seen the post, too (IT perk). To be honest, the post itself looked fine to me. It's only when you combine the reference to the tour company with the information that this was a paid for trip that it's get inappropriate. So I fully understand Els decision to revert the post back to you. Personally, I think the fix would be sufficient to take out the recommendation plus link, but this is up to Els.

Generally speaking, I am still astonished that people can travel at other's expense by trading in blog posts and social media. It does create a weird incentive structure (Greatest! Bestest! Totally amazing!...).

Most people in the community travel on their own check book. And this is how I read most reviews here. If we get more and more professional travelers I think this would run counter to this spirit of the site and make the reviews less fun. It's not a professional site, Els is spending her own money running it (and on her travels) and I think this is how it should stay.

You mean like this?
https://www.worldheritagesite.org/list/Henderson+Island#community

Yeah, some from the past would not make it through nowadays. I've deleted it now (or moved it to the links section).

I just want to thank Els for all the work in keeping the website as niche as it is. For many the temptation to commercialize becomes too great and it all goes downhill so fast. The independent travel nature of this community is what keeps it great!

I made a BIG mistake and actually looked at the company which paid for M Turtle's trip and which he recommended so highly - just to see what they offered!!

I now can't look at my Yahoo mail without an advert line for "G Adventures" appearing at the top - and every Web page I look at seems to think I want to go to Yucatan. Have had to go to settings and remove the 23 Cookies it had placed on my PC!!!

The trouble is that I normally look at Web sites likely to place cookies etc via "Incognito mode" - result - no cookies. And even choose Opera as the browser because it blocks adverts (amazing the number of Web sites which don't like that!) But I look at this Web site in normal mode as don't expect such problems and it is useful to get auto log on etc.

But even that hasn't stopped Yahoo Mail continuing to show gadventure adverts on the sidebar (I use the "cheapo" version with adverts!) -they could be linked in to my log-in somehow - or have had some "anonymous" cookies - but I really don't want to "clear all"!! NOT a company I would recommend anybody to deal with on the basis of the way they market themselves. God knows how much they have to "pad" their prices to pay for all those ads and their "ambassadors" on "freebie" trips - and am somewhat further "turned off" by what I have read about the self publicising entrepreneur who founded it and "changed the World by reinventing business".
So PLEASE keep sponsored links away from this Web site Els.

Kind of off-topic, but that seems fairly typical for internet advertising. Remember that by using the free version of Yahoo mail, you aren't the customer - you're the product being sold to their advertisers. By using the service, you've agreed to be tracked across the internet by their ad network, and to be shown ads that you might be interested in (and because you've searched for G Adventures tours in Mexico, they assume you're interested in buying that). It's certainly nothing sinister.

It's not really anything to do with G Adventures in particular, all they've done is purchase a certain number of ad displays from their advertising network, targeted at people they know are interested in travel to certain areas.

But of course I fully support keeping this site non-commercial :)