Last updated 28 September 2026.
Best of Lake Garda is written by two people, Alex and Nicole, and paid for by the readers who book through our links. This page sets out the rules we work to, so you can judge for yourself how much to trust a list. If we ever break one of them, we would like to hear about it.
How a place gets on a list
- We have been. Every restaurant, beach, hotel, walk and vineyard in a ranked list is somewhere one of us has eaten, swum, slept, walked or tasted. If we have not been, it is not on the list, however good it looks online.
- We pay our own way. We book the room, order the food and buy the ferry ticket like anyone else. Nobody knows we are writing about them, so nobody puts on a show.
- Strongest first. Every guide is a numbered list, ordered the way we would tell a friend. Number one is where we would send you if you only had one evening.
- Re-checked each season. Chefs move, lidos change hands, a good hotel gets a new owner. We go back through every list each year, and each guide shows the month it was last checked.
- Places drop off. A place that slips does not keep its spot because it used to be good. When standards fall, it comes off the list and something better goes on.
- Nothing is for sale. No one can pay to be on a list or to move up one. We do not accept free stays, meals or tours in return for coverage, and we do not run sponsored entries or “featured” badges.
How we check the practical details
Opinions come from visits. Facts come from the people who run things. Ferry routes, bus lines, car parks, limited-traffic zones, opening seasons and ticket prices are checked against the official sources: Navigazione Laghi for the boats, the regional bus operators, the railway, each comune’s own website and each attraction’s own site. Where we quote a price we say which year we saw it, because prices on the lake change every spring. The “Getting there” section of every town guide, and any price on the site, carries the date it was last verified.
We do not copy timetables, because they change faster than we can re-check them. We tell you which route or line to look for and link you to the operator for today’s times.
Scores, price bands and tips
Each ranked entry has a score out of 100. It is our own judgement of how well a place does what it sets out to do, at the price it charges, on the day we were there. A 90 at a twelve-euro pizzeria and a 90 at a Michelin table are both places we would go back to without hesitation. The price band, from one to four euro signs, is a guide to what you will spend on a typical evening for two or a night in a standard room in June. The insider tip is the one thing we wish someone had told us before we went, and it is written in the first person because it happened to us.
Corrections
If something on a page is wrong, tell us through the contact page, naming the page and what has changed. We check every report against the source and correct the page within a few days; the “last checked” date on the guide is updated when we do. A note from a reader who was there last week is worth more than our visit last spring, and most of the best changes to these lists have come from readers and from people who live on the lake.
How the site makes money
Some links to hotels, tours and boat hire are affiliate links. If you book through one we may earn a small commission; you pay exactly the same. That is the only income this site has. The order of every list is settled before a single booking link goes in, and plenty of our number ones have no link at all, because the best trattoria on the lake does not take online bookings and never will. Pages with affiliate links say so at the top of the list.
Photography
Where a photograph is not ours, the credit is at the foot of the page: the photographer, the source and the licence. We only use pictures that are in the public domain or released under a Creative Commons licence that allows it, and we are replacing them with our own as we go back to each town.
Tools we use
We use software, including AI writing tools, to help structure drafts, tidy prose and cross-check practical details against official sources. Every place on a list was chosen by one of us after a visit, every ranking is ours, and every fact is checked by a person before it is published. Nothing goes live under an automated account.
Independence
Neither of us owns, works for or has family running any business listed on this site. If that ever changes, the entry will say so in plain words. Press-trip invitations, free stays and requests for paid listings are declined, politely, every week.