If you know me, or have been following this blog, I’m all about anything that makes travel easier/cheaper/more frequent/more rewarding—basically anything that can help stimulate and satiate the travel bug.
And I’ve recently come across two such things: one that makes travel cheaper and one that makes planning easier. Which, apparently, are the two biggest things that prevent people from going places.
A tragic study that came out earlier this year by OnePoll and Victorinox said a shocking 40 percent of Americans have never left the country (😱), and more than half have never owned a passport(😱😱). These unfortunate facts were mostly owed to either lack of funds or a feeling of being unprepared or ill-equipped to travel.
Now, I’m not saying either of these travel hacks is going to make miracles happen to change those stats, but if even a few more people have the opportunity or confidence to get out and see the world, we’ll all be living in a better place.
First up, flights.
Scott’s Cheap Flights
Scott’s Cheap Flights may not be new to the world (it launched in 2015 and I’ve evidently been missing half my life since then) but it’s new to me, so I’m sharing it in case there are others who have missed this boat, too.
The people behind the company make it their business to find you the best flight deals out there. And yes, there are many websites that claim to do the same thing, but Scott and his peeps are finding you those accidental fares that are so cheap you’ll have a hard time believing it. In fact, they may actually be standing by waiting for airlines to make those mistakes.
Here’s what the website says: “When an airline makes a mistake or offers a great sale, Scott finds it and emails you with instructions on how to book.”
To benefit from all of this greatness, you just sign up with your email and you’ll start seeing deals in your inbox. The thing is, though, you have to be ready to book pretty quickly or else you’ll likely miss out on the fare.
This week alone, I saw fares from JFK to India for $538 ROUNDTRIP, from Miami to Belize for $199 and from JFK or La Guardia to either Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, Geneva, Munich, Vienna or Zurich for $495 roundtrip.
I may forever be indebted to the friend who put me onto this. Go get yourself some travel deals.
Google’s Touring Bird
Now for the planning part.
Some people are travel planning freaks. Almost to the point where they’ve itinerized (yes, I’m aware that’s not an actual word but it expresses what I mean and Urban Dictionary cosigned it so I think we’re good) every moment of every day so as not to miss out on anything.
If you’re not one of those people, you’d do best never to travel with one.
Other people have no idea how to plan or prefer to wing it. Sometimes that works in their favor and they encounter incredible things they never thought they’d find. Other times, it backfires because they miss out on things you need advance bookings for or their lack of preparedness turns into time spent idling figuring out what to do next.
If you’re not one of those people, you’d do best never to travel with one.
The ideal, I think, is to be somewhere in the middle.
And Google’s newly launched Touring Bird might be able to help. The site pulls top attractions, locally-known only places and even Instagram-worthly locales for top cities around the world to help you plan your trip.
In looking at New York to see if Google got it right, I even discovered things I didn’t know where going on here.
You can scroll through to see the obvious most popular attractions (which I’m sure is based on Google search data, so probably pretty accurate), like the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building. Then you can get local tips like where to find Michelin-rated food at regular people prices or where you can tango in Central Park. And then there’s a whole host of free tours around the city that’ll take you through Greenwich Village to find the best food or through Harlem for art, music, culture and vibes.
There are only 20 cities available for now—including Barcelona, Paris, Prague and New Delhi (and it’s only on the web, not an app), but knowing Google, there’s likely more to come.