JetSetMeister

My first stop when travel dreaming is usually Kayak’s Buzz webpage. 

Buzz tells you what fares other people have found in the past several days. I love it because you can search by continent: Simply plug in your home airport and choose which continent you want to check fares for. Then, start imagining: Grenada for $440? Santa Cruz, Bolivia for $618? Tel Aviv for $900?

Or if you know where you want to go, switch to the “Lowest Fare” option, enter your destination airport, and find recent fares.

A newer, repackaged version of Buzz is Kayak’s Explore map. Explore’s tagline says it all: See where you can go for how much. It’s quite satisfying to move the slider back and forth and see where you can go for $300, $600, $1000.

The downside is that just because that $200 fare from LAX to Guatemala City on March 25-April 3 was found a few days ago, doesn’t mean it’s still available. Fares change constantly and if your dates are fixed, that will usually drive up your fare. But it’s useful to know what current fares are so you know when you’ve found a deal..or when you’re overpaying.

This is one of those times when it pays to be flexible. And to act quickly. Two years ago I saw a flight from LAX to South Africa for $428 round trip. I still lament that I could have gone elephant-spotting for the same price as flying to the East Coast.

Because Buzz and Explore are so useful, these are my first stops when researching destinations that are within my budget. And since my definition of fun is knowing what current flight prices are to any given world city, I stop by often. Geez. Kayak should pay me for this.

I’ve been pretty MIA, I realize, as I’ve been home in California for the past few months (that’s me as a retro flight attendant for Halloween) and have fallen off the blog train.

Fear not! Lately, I’ve been feeling the subtle nudges of motivation prodding me to pick up the keyboard and write about travel. Specifically the pre-trip part. Figuring out the where and the how. And sometimes most importantly, the how much.

For example, one of my best friends is a teacher and has 2 weeks off for her Spring Break. She and I have been throwing around ideas for places to go during her vacation.

Here’s the big question: How do you plan a trip when you don’t really care WHERE you go (you just know you want to go)?

In the next few posts I’ll share my haphazard fun and unique process for planning trips. We’ll just ignore the fact that I champion the no-plan plan for now.