Our next trip is fast approaching, and it’s time to start playing Google Flights Roulette.
We want to go to South America (somewhere) in November (flexible dates.) Going into google.com/flights, I said we want to fly from any Chicago airport, to South America, in November.
When I click on Suggested dates, it offers the following:
Paging down through the highlighted trips, I saw some interesting options. Quito and Guayaquil make nice jumping-off points for heading out to the Galapagos Islands, such a great bucket-list trip.
I went back and narrowed in on November 4-8. At the bottom of the screen you can now see part of a map.
From here you click on “Explore destinations” to see a map of South America and nearby sites. You can move around and zoom in to see the best airfare from Chicago to various cities all over the region. Should we consider Bogota, at $417 round trip? Or perhaps Medellin, which is getting a surprising amount of press as an expat haven?
Click on “I’m Feeling Lucky” to get a somewhat-random suggestion of a good deal. My first try delivered a site in Brazil, and the second try delivered a suggestion on the western side of South America, in Quito, where we would like to go.
We mostly buy 1-way tickets to keep our travels flexible. There are less search options for 1-way tickets, but you can still use this feature: seeing the best price per day in a 2-month window. This is how we snagged a one-way flight from Chicago to Quito, Ecuador for $166 each. On today’s screen you can see best prices highlighted in green, at $180 each.
Change the inputs, spin the wheel, and so many possibilities appear. The hardest part is pulling the trigger and buying the ticket.
Question: leaving from Chicago, do you park your car there, or do you have someone drive you to Chicago?
I’m about 2 hours from Washington DC, and as you know that’s another center for volume (low-cost) airfares. In my case I could take an Uber to the train station, then the train to Washington DC, leaving my car in the driveway.
Leaving a car sit for three months is not the best; do you leave your car with someone who will drive it occasionally, or just keep it in covered parking?