Hi, I'm Erwin. I have a lot of questions.

Probably too many, if you ask the people around me.

I can turn a perfectly normal conversation into an interrogation without noticing. Someone tells me something unexpected happened while they were grocery shopping, and before they get to the interesting part I'm asking which supermarket it was. And what they were buying.

Apparently those details aren't always relevant. I disagree. I need context.

I love adventure. I just don't like surprises.

In 2025 I moved from the Netherlands to Bali with my family. We wanted a different way of living, with a bit more freedom and a lot more tropical weather. I like new places, other cultures and trying things I haven't tried.

What I don't like is walking into something blind. So I research. A simple hotel booking can turn into hours of comparing prices, reading reviews and wondering why the same property gets completely different ratings depending on where you look. Sometimes I end up with a better answer. Sometimes I find twelve more options I hadn't considered.

Why Grain of Salt

I'd like to say I started this to change how people travel, but that would be a bit dramatic. The truth is that I've spent a ridiculous amount of time researching things nobody asked me to research, and I've always wanted to build something of my own. Something I enjoy, something I'm good at, and, ideally, something that earns money.

A week at a luxury resort is a lot of money, and the brochure won't tell you what it adds up to or who it's wrong for. So I read what guests write, check the prices, work out the full bill and put the answers on one page. We start with the Maldives.

The name is the point. Take everything you read about a resort with a grain of salt, including what you read here.

How I work

I don't stay at the resorts I write about, and I won't pretend I do. My reviews come from research: what guests report, what the resort publishes, what things cost and what the resort says when I ask. I use AI tools to help me explore and organise all that, but everything I write and every conclusion in it is my own. I try to keep a clear line between what the evidence shows, what I think it means and what I don't know yet.

Every review has a part about where it falls short. The full method, and when not to trust me, is on the How I research page.

How this site earns money

Right now this site earns nothing. Later I may earn a commission on bookings you make through my links. It won't change what I write. I don't book for you or contact hotels on your behalf. You click through and book with the resort.

Questions or a correction? Write to me at erwin@grainofsalt.travel.

I'm not going to give you a long list of reasons to trust me. Read a review or two and decide for yourself.

ErwinWriting from Bali, probably with too many browser tabs open.