What Pocono Reserve is
Pocono Reserve publishes travel guides, hidden gems and itineraries for the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania: lake destinations, trails, state parks, restaurants, breweries and wineries, and seasonal events. We don't own or manage homes, sell tours or take reservations. When something in a guide appeals to you, you book it directly with the place, and that includes the short list of hand-picked Pocono stays, which you book on the listing site (such as VRBO) or the host's own site. Some of those booking links are affiliate links, so we may earn a commission if you book.
How places get into the guides
Every restaurant, trail, park, venue and event we name is one we have researched and checked ourselves, not whichever places rank highest elsewhere. Before a business goes in, we check that it exists and is open against at least two independent sources, such as its own website, a visitors bureau listing or local news coverage. A single listing-site blurb isn't enough.
Facts about the wider region, like drive times, weather and visitor statistics, come from public sources that are cited where they appear, with a retrieval date when the figure can change. Each place is filed under its nearest destination guide by real drive time.
How the Reserve Score works
Restaurants on Food & Drink carry a Reserve Score from 0 to 100. It summarizes each place's public Google star rating and review count, adjusted so a perfect rating from a handful of reviews doesn't outrank a strong rating from thousands. It is not a visit, a tasting or an inspection, and no place can pay to change it. The full methodology explains the weights, the bands and the limits.
Money: what we earn and what we don't
- No place pays to appear in the guides, to be ranked or to change what we write about it.
- The private chef and catering pages are one exception, and they say so: if you ask us to recommend a chef or caterer, we may receive a referral fee from the partner we connect you with. The fee doesn't change what you pay, and it never affects the guides.
- The other is our hand-picked stays: some booking links there are affiliate links, so we may earn a commission from the platform (such as VRBO) if you book through one. It costs you nothing extra and doesn't decide which homes we pick.
How the guides are written
Some drafts are prepared with AI writing tools. Every place they name is one we have already researched and checked, every outside statistic carries its source, and each piece is reviewed before it's published. Articles show the date they were published and, when the facts change, the date they were last updated.
Corrections
Hours change, restaurants close and trails get rerouted. If something in a guide is wrong or out of date, please tell us. We fix factual errors and update the page date when we do. Business owners can send corrections the same way; see owners and local businesses.