Affiliate disclosure
Smoke & Sand and its three corridor brands — South Texas Coast, Florida Space Coast, and California Central Coast — earn affiliate commissions on many of the outbound links we publish. This page lays out, in plain English, every program we participate in and how it affects what you read.
The short version
If you click an outbound link to a hotel, vacation rental, tour, or piece of gear and book or buy something, we may earn a commission. You pay the same price either way.
We disclose this in compliance with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 C.F.R. Part 255).
Programs we participate in
- Amazon Associates — we earn from qualifying purchases.
- Awin — bookings and purchases at Awin merchants (Booking.com, others).
- Commission Junction (CJ Affiliate) — VRBO, Hotels.com, and other CJ merchants.
- Travelpayouts — secondary affiliate bridge for travel inventory.
- AvantLink — outdoor retailers including YETI, Bass Pro, Patagonia, Backcountry.
- Impact (impact.com) — REI Co-op affiliate program (managed by NewEngen).
- Direct affiliate programs — FishingBooker, HireAHelper, and other operator-direct programs as we approve into them.
How outbound links work
Every outbound link on the network routes through /go/<slug>. This redirector sends you to the merchant with our tracking attached — and lets us swap a single line of code when an affiliate program changes its tracking. The destination is the real merchant; we never modify the price or product.
Editorial independence
The existence of an affiliate relationship has no bearing on whether we recommend a hotel, restaurant, tour, or product. We will happily recommend something that pays us nothing and decline to recommend something that pays well, if that's the honest call. When the editorial pick and the commercial path diverge, the editorial pick wins, every time.
What we don't do
- We don't accept payment for placement.
- We don't publish "sponsored content" disguised as editorial.
- We don't recommend gear we wouldn't carry ourselves.
- We don't list venues we haven't verified.
Questions
Email hello@smokeandsand.co. We'll answer.