Kayak.com does more than you might think

You may have noticed that in the last couple of weeks we added a Kayak.com flight search box to our sidebar (over on the right).  You may have wondered why.  “Why would they do this?” you might have said to yourself.  You may be saying it to yourself even now.  Fear not, I am here to answer that question for you.

We decided to become affiliate advertisers for Kayak.com for 3 reasons:

1)  Travel is awesome. Everyone should do it more often.

2)  Kayak.com is one of the very best tools out there for finding ways to travel cheaply (if anyone out there doesn’t already know about Kayak.com, it compares fares against virtually every airline and aggregator (e.g., Expedia, Travelocity, etc.) and helps you find the very cheapest/fastest/best way to travel.

3) We don’t want to have to get real jobs anytime soon.  Someday we’re hoping to make some money off of this blog, and if you access Kayak.com through us, we will!  Wouldn’t that be great?  To be sure, we won’t make much money, but empanadas are cheap (another reason why everyone should travel).

But wait, there’s more!!

I only recently learned about this feature and it blew my mind.  It may blow your mind too.  You should sit down.

Have you ever been sitting around thinking to yourself:

“I really need a vacation…  I wonder where I should go?”

or

“I finally have a free weekend, maybe I can plan a trip!”

or

“I only have $300 to spend, I wonder if there is anywhere I could go for that much…”

Kayak.com can answer these questions very quickly for you.  Check out this link:  Kayak: Where can I go from San Francisco in Fall of 2010 for under $1200?

This feature allows you to tell it your origin city, your price range and your time of the year and it will tell you on average what it would cost you to go anywhere in the world within that price range at that time of year.  If you want to, you can even include activities (e.g.,where can I go skiing from Chicago in Jan for <$500).  Instead of skiing, you could also tell it beach or a temperature range or a few other things.  Seriously, this is cool.

In my opinion, this feature is under-marketed… I had never heard of it before I randomly stumbled upon it.  It’s extremely useful for preliminary trip planning to spur ideas when you know you have some time off at some point, but aren’t sure where to go AND also very useful for last minute travel when you suddenly have a few days and just want to get away.

Let’s review what we’ve learned

1)  Kayak.com is awesome

2)  Kayak.com is even awesomer than you may have thought

3)  You don’t want Ryan and Jen to have to get jobs; you want them to eat more empanadas.  To enable this goal, when planning or booking travel you should consider starting with the Kayak.com flight search box here on Consulting Rehab.

Word?

8 thoughts on “Kayak.com does more than you might think

  1. i check explore every morning and dream.

    and then I go back to my spreadsheets.

    (if you have an in with them, can you get them to add the check nearby airports” functionality? big out of the Bay, LA, NYC, DC area, etc)

    <3,
    D. Harrison

  2. I actually need that functionality RIGHT NOW — I will click through your link, fo sho. No one wants you guys going without empanadas 🙂

    We miss you in SF!

    • All of this is pretty much aewmose Rich. It sounds like lots of fun and I have to admit, I kinda wanna do it too. I’ve never been kayaking but It seems like it would be scary fun mixed with peaceful which sounds great. Recently I have been very eager to get out into nature as well and its something of a mystery to me. I went all the time with my family as a kid but started to really dislike it when I got a bit older. Then all of a sudden it was like POW! and I started going back out. So Good luck getting to where you want, it sounds exciting and I am thoroughly enjoying this blog. Just FYI.

  3. hahahaha. so when are you using the “cheapest time to come back to SF” functionality?

  4. I firmly believe I should get a shout-out in this post, seeing as how Kayak stole my idea…

    • You raise a good point 🙂

      Let it be known to all reading these comments that Maureen White suggested this idea years ago–before there even was a Kayak. Kayak should be ashamed for stealing it from her.

      Better? 🙂

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