Wikivoyage:Welcome, newcomers

Welcome to Wikivoyage—the travel guide anyone can edit! We, the Wikivoyagers who've made it, hope that you enjoy what you see and that you join us in making a free, up-to-date, complete and reliable worldwide travel guide.

Finding travel information
Articles on Wikivoyage are mostly based on geographical locations. You generally won't find a whole article on one attraction, hotel or restaurant, but you hopefully will find all that information and more in our destination articles for countries, cities, and towns.

You can try searching for the destination you are interested in. You may be taken immediately to a guide for that destination, or if there isn't a guide on that destination, you will see a list of articles that mention it. You can also try searching for the name of an attraction you are looking for, and the search will return a list of relevant articles.

Alternatively, you can browse through our geographical hierarchy. You can start at the continents and regions listed on our Main Page, and work your way down through the region, city and district links to the area you are interested in.

After you have found the guide for the area you are interested in, there may still be more information waiting for you to read. We don't cover information on how to get into a country in every destination guide. You won't find visa information for Australia in the Sydney article. So, if you are coming from further afield, you may want to refer to the breadcrumb links at the top of the page, and read the country or region guide, to make sure you have the full picture.

We don't list general travel information in every guide. We have helpful articles on things like money, visas, how to stay safe and how to deal with language barriers in our list of travel topics.

Remember that Wikivoyage is an open guide that anyone can edit. Often that means you can get up-to-the-minute information and inside information on attractions and the latest buzz, but sometimes it means that some information can be unverified and unreliable. As with any other guide, you should double check and confirm any information that is critical to the success of your travels.

If you have particular travel questions that aren't covered in a guide, you can ask a docent. A docent is a volunteer guide, and if there is one for your area there will be a link in the sidebar on the left containing their contact information.

For general questions, post a message in our Travellers' pub.

You're free to use the articles in Wikivoyage in almost any way, thanks to our copyleft license.

Share your knowledge
This is a reader-created website; all the information you see in Wikivoyage was contributed by Internet users just like you. We're trying to create, illustrate, and edit a travel guide for the entire world, and we need your help. It's a humongous job. As they say, though, "Many hands make light work;" anything you can do to contribute is appreciated. You don't have to be an "expert" in travel; you just have to be interested enough to get started.

You're always welcome to plunge forward and make changes to any page on the site, including this one. Just click the Edit this page link, and you'll get a Web form that lets you change the contents of the page. Hit Save page, and your version is what's shown on the site. If you're nervous, feel free to practice on the graffiti wall.

If you find yourself getting more involved, you may want to read our tips for new contributors. Our list of goals and non-goals give a good idea of what we're trying to do with Wikivoyage. If you've got some specific info you want to share, we have some guidelines on where you can stick it (pun intended). You can also read our manual of style for more clues as to how to edit and layout guides, but don't worry too much about that stuff if you don't want. Don't forget to describe yourself on your user page to help other contributors to communicate with you (and even to ask for your help sometimes).

There are other ways to help Wikivoyage, too. We have a lot of stuff that needs to be done. And if you have special skills or interests, consider joining a related Expedition.

More information
We have quite a bit of help documentation to make reading and editing Wikivoyage as easy as we can.

If you have any questions about Wikivoyage, please read our FAQ first to see if it's already answered. If not, feel free to ask your question in the travellers' pub, where friendly Wikivoyagers will help guide your way.

We can't say how important it is to us that you are reading and contributing on Wikivoyage. If you need anything, just ask us (however you can). We want you to enjoy Wikivoyage, to find the info you need, and (we hope) to be inspired to share your knowledge with others.