The other day I was wishing there was a flight search site
that didn’t require you to put in a “To” airport so you could compare estimated
flight costs from your chosen airport(s) to multiple destinations around the globe. Then I found Google Flights, which
does exactly that.
On Google Flights you can enter your flight dates and “From”
airport while leaving the destination airport blank. The search results will bring up a map displaying
flight costs to airports all over the world.
You can refine your search by selecting your maximum number of stops, cost,
travel time and more.
For example, I selected random dates in October as a test, flying
out of Reagan National (DCA) and other nearby airports with a maximum of one
stopover and maximum price of $600. The
results showed me a variety of airports in the USA, Canada, Caribbean, Mexico and
South America that met this criteria.
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| Google Flights screen shot |
Then I de-selected any price or stops maximum to get a sense
of what it would cost to fly to places across the ocean and beyond. I once-again realized that it’s still
probably too expensive to consider returning to the UK or Europe, but flights
to Peru, Curacao or Nova Scotia could be within my travel budget.
You might have to play around with the options a bit to make
sure that you’re not missing some potential destinations. For instance, someone recently told me that
flights to the island of Roatan in Honduras were relatively cheap. Although it didn’t show up on the search
results, I found the Roatan airport Coxen Hole on the map (it’s Southeast of
Belize City) and once I clicked on the light-blue colored dot some flights did
come up under $600. I would not have
seen that had I not checked.
But, other than that, Google Flights is a pretty awesome flight
search engine that you can have fun with by selecting different varieties of
options. Maybe it’s time to consider a
long weekend in Boston or Miami?
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