TravelCharika

What to know about a country before going, as TravelCharika prints it: the currency, plug types and voltage, which side of the road they drive on, how expensive it is against the United States, the UK Foreign Office's travel advice with its link -- and beside it the US State Department's and Global Affairs Canada's, each in its own words with its level and link, for a reader from those countries -- and the places the site covers there with their best months. Then on arrival, put together by hand with its sources and the day it was checked: the ride-hailing, map and messaging apps people there use, how people pay (and whether India's UPI works for a visitor from India), each place's transit card, tipping, and the emergency numbers.

country_facts

Two places side by side, month by month: which is the better pick in each month (or either, or neither), the verdict in one sentence, how far apart they are and the ways between them a record has, and each country's practical facts. TravelCharika compares places in the same region; for two it does not compare, call best_months for each.

compare_places

How to get from one of TravelCharika's departure cities to a place: the airlines that fly the route all year by Wikipedia's airport articles, nonstop or with the hub they change at and between which airports, each with its own booking page; the ways a record has (a year-round nonstop and its airlines, a road's distance and driving time); the distance and an estimated flight time; the airports that serve the place; and Wikivoyage's "Get in" for it where the site quotes one. Never a fare or a timetable: booking_links is where prices live.

how_to_get_there

Find what TravelCharika has a page for, by name: places, countries, regions, kinds of place ("beaches"), trips, departure cities, comparisons, months and holidays. Matches as the site's own search box does: accents ignored, a name a place is also known by ("Bombay"), one letter off ("Marrakesh"), and a month among the words ("bali in may") gives that month's page. Returns each match's kind, name, the id the other tools take, and its page. Call it first whenever you have a name rather than an id; nothing matching gets the nearest names instead.

search_places

When to go to one place: TravelCharika's verdict for each of the twelve months (sweet spot, good, ok or avoid) with its reason, scored from ten years of measured climate, the public holidays that crowd it and observed fares; the typical daytime high, rainy days (what counts as one is in the answer's rainy_days_are: days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them), humidity and sunshine of each month; the sweet spot; and the verdict in one sentence, as the place's page says it. Give from_city for the typical return fare from that city by month, in its own currency, where the site has seen fares. A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one; `crowds` gives the busiest and quietest months as the page's graph of how busy it gets shows them, and how that is measured.

best_months

Where to book a trip to one place, as the place's page shows it to that reader: the booking sites people in the reader's own country use, in the order they know them (flights, a room, things to do, car hire, travel insurance, an eSIM for data), and the brands to book with directly (the airlines Wikipedia's airport articles show flying the route, hotel groups and luxury houses with a hotel there, car renters with a counter in its country), each address filled in for the place and the route. No address carries dates: each site opens on its own search. Some sites pay TravelCharika a commission, which never decides whether or where one is listed; show the result's disclosure with the links.

booking_links