Which over 60 dating sites are best for finding travel companions?

Going to be blunt about over 60 dating sites are best for finding travel companions because I'm tired of guessing. What nobody mentions about dating sites is how much of the traffic is automated.

What I keep running into with dating sites is that no two accounts of it match. I judge dating sites almost entirely on how fast it loads on a bad connection.

What I'd tell a friend about dating sites, in order:

• Note what happens to your visibility after a week of silence on mobile data, not office wifi
• Watch whether the same faces cycle back the next day in your own city rather than the default radius
• Work out how the web version differs from the app on mobile data, not office wifi
• Watch how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands on mobile data, not office wifi
• Watch how the search behaves outside the default radius on the first evening, not the first month

If you gave up on dating sites, what did the first week look like? Successes and dead ends all land the same with me. Firsthand accounts are what I came here for.

Not the answer anyone wants: dating sites is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. Anyone comparing dating sites should be looking at how obvious the scripted replies are before anything else. Datewander came up in a similar thread last month.

That's my read on dating sites — happy to be argued with.

For what it's worth: there's a version of dating sites that works, and it isn't the default one. Where dating sites falls down for me is whether it is genuinely free or free until you try to reply on mobile. Genuinely surprised by the flamedate.online crowd after low expectations.

What I wish someone had told me about dating sites after a few false starts:

• Check how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands on mobile data, not office wifi
• Check how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands using a fresh account rather than an old one
• Count whether photo permissions are opt-in or opt-out with the age filter set narrow

If you are evaluating dating sites, start with how obvious the scripted replies are day to day — everything else follows.

That's where I've landed on dating sites, though clearly it varies by region.

After a fair bit of testing: there's a version of dating sites that works, and it isn't the default one. The honest test for dating sites is whether the activity is real or recycled at the times you actually log in, not the feature list. I cross-checked against what Ezhookups is doing before deciding anything.

The three things that decide dating sites if you're short on time:

• Track what happens to your visibility after a week of silence at the hour you would actually be using it
• Check how the feed changes when you narrow the age range before you upload a second photo
• Verify whether last-active timestamps look plausible on mobile data, not office wifi
• Count how the web version differs from the app at the hour you would actually be using it

The only metric I trust with dating sites is how quickly the fake accounts surface on mobile.

That's been my experience with dating sites — happy to be argued with.

Having used it a while: dating sites is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating sites and just check how fast moderation responds.

Worked for me on dating sites, anyway.

After a fair bit of testing: dating sites has been mixed for me and I'll explain why. Two weeks in, how aggressive the upsell gets in practice is what actually mattered for dating sites.

That's been my experience with dating sites, for whatever that's worth.

Blunt answer: I want to like dating sites more than I actually do. My rule with dating sites: whether verification actually filters anyone in practice first, everything else second. Datelink (datelink.online) solved about half of this for me.

The thing that decides it for dating sites is what the reporting tools actually do at the times you actually log in.

That's what six weeks of dating sites taught me, and I would be glad to hear others found different.

Disagree with @Ava_M on dating sites. The version of dating sites I used had none of that. For dating sites, what share of matches go nowhere once you are past sign-up is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

That's where I've landed on dating sites, anyway.