Categories

Two different kinds of category

The categories above split into two genuinely different groupings. The regional ones — Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa & Oceania — exist because tipping norms often cluster more by region than by any single country's borders; a traveler doing a multi-country European trip benefits from seeing how neighboring countries compare before diving into any one of them individually. The topic ones — dining, travel, services, gifts — cut across regions instead, grouping by the kind of transaction rather than the place it happens in.

Where a hub is useful and where it isn't

A category hub is the right stop when you're comparing several related pages at once — deciding between two countries for an upcoming trip, or trying to understand how "tipping in a restaurant" differs from "tipping a delivery driver" as a general pattern. It's the wrong stop if you already know exactly which country or situation you need; in that case, the country directory or situations directory gets you there faster, since each hub is deliberately an overview rather than a substitute for the dedicated page underneath it.

Comparing pages that would otherwise be scattered

The main value of a hub is putting related pages next to each other that the individual directories would otherwise scatter across dozens of entries — every European country in one place, or every "services" situation (movers, cleaners, contractors) in one place, rather than mixed in alphabetically with unrelated countries or situations. That side-by-side view is genuinely useful when the decision you're facing is comparative: which of these countries has the more tipping-heavy dining culture, or which of these service situations actually expects a tip versus which one doesn't.

A hub links out; it doesn’t replace the page

Each category hub frames why its pages belong together and highlights what's genuinely distinctive about the group, then sends you to the individual page for the full depth — it deliberately doesn't try to re-explain a country or situation's specific norms at the same level of detail the dedicated page already covers. If a hub and a dedicated page ever seem to say the same thing at the same depth, that's a sign to trust the dedicated page as the more current, more specific source.

Picking a starting point if you’re not sure

If you're not sure whether a regional or a topic hub is the better starting point, a simple test works: if your question is anchored to a place ("I'm going to Southeast Asia"), start with a regional hub; if it's anchored to an activity or relationship regardless of place ("I'm about to have my apartment repainted"), start with a topic hub. Either way, every hub links onward to the country and situations directories, so picking the "wrong" one first costs you nothing more than one extra click.