Kayak Roulette: The New Version of Throwing a Dart in a Map
March 20th, 2009
I’ve always wanted to just throw a dart in a map and go wherever it happens to land. I love the spontaneity and randomness of it. It’s the perfect excuse to visit someplace that you might never have gone to otherwise, perhaps someplace off the beaten track. The other night, I finally did it…sort of. Let me explain.
Emily and I wanted to go someplace next weekend, but we didn’t really care where. We know that we will be living here in Switzerland for a while so there will be plenty of time to explore all of Europe. To help us decide, I invented a new game – I call it “Kayak Roulette”. Basically you make a long list of destinations, check the prices for each one on Kayak.com (PS – I love Kayak), and whichever turns out to be the cheapest flight is the winner!
I made a list of about 25 cities around Europe and plugged each one into Kayak. I was only looking for flights that would leave after work on Friday and return in the late afternoon on Sunday. After trying them all, the winner was…drumroll please…Oslo, Norway! We got direct flights with good times for $199 CHF, which was over $100 cheaper than anywhere else. Neither of us have ever been to Scandinavia before or really know anything about Oslo or Norway. Oslo was not top on our list of must-see desinations, but I think that makes it even better. Now we have an excuse to explore a new city in a new country that we might never have gone to otherwise.
So if you want to travel but don’t know where to go, try Kayak roulette!!
[...] story: Remember how I said we chose to visit Oslo because it was the cheapest weekend flight available? Well, after we booked the trip we discovered that Norway is actually one of the most expensive [...]