Seniors on the Go
New Web site offers ideas for vacation choices
Although most of you probably have a pretty good idea of where you like to go and what you like to do on your vacations, you may occasionally run out of ideas. One reader recently did: He asked, “We’re a family of two plus two teenagers; we live in San Diego, and we have $2,000 to spend. Where should we go for an outing?” Normally, I throw up my hands at a request that vague: I have no idea, for example, whether this family would prefer bright lights in Vegas, relaxing on a beach on Baja, or museums in San Francisco.
Fortunately, if you’re in that boat, a new Web site can help. The basic idea of Travel- Muse ( www.travelmuse.com ) is to bring together information on vacation themes and activities and combine that with information on travel and accommodations prices. If you have no idea what you really want to do, you can let the site help: • Log on, then click on the “Find Inspiration” menu, where you enter your home airport, family composition, season you want to travel, desired trip duration, the class of accommodation you prefer, and your target budget per person.
• You then select from a long list of vacation “themes,” ranging from “Amusement Parks” and “baseball” to “whale watching” and “wine tasting.”
• Next, you enter a maximum flight time you prefer, then hit “inspire me.”
The site returns with one or more pages of suggestions. Each page displays four suggested destinations, and, for each, the budget range of packages it found, the estimated flight time, the ability to match your theme(s), links to destination information archived on the site, and specific packages and their prices. If you see something you like, you can buy it: TravelMuse links the results directly to Travelocity for actual purchase.
If you already know where you want to go or what to do, you can bypass the “inspire” menu and instead enter more specific trip particulars and limitations. Here, too, the site returns a lot of detailed information.
How well does it work? I tested my reader’s question. Starting in San Diego, two adults and two teenagers, a total budget of $2,000 (or $500 per person), travel in the fall, budget level accommodations, (I guessed) three days, and a maximum travel time of four hours. Since the reader gave no clue about the family’s interests, I chose “family vacation” as the theme.
• The site returned suggestions for Branson, Houston, Banff and Vancouver, B. C. Only one of the four destinations actually offered any packages that met the budget ceiling of $500 a person (Houston); the others ranged from $509 (Branson) to $570 (Banff). And all of the destinations returned some options well above the budget target.
• I then decided to recheck, but with a reduced maximum travel time of two hours. This time, all four of the suggestions met the budget under $500 per person, ranging from $232 per person in Tucson to $480 for Flagstaff, with San Francisco and Monterey between them.
• I next checked a more extensive trip: Six days, a budget of $1,000 per person, and a maximum flight time of six hours. This time, six of the eight options Travel- Muse returned met the budget limit: Key West, Montreal, Myrtle Beach, Ottawa, Philadelphia and Washington. Only Bahamas Out Islands and New York City missed that target.
Overall, TravelMuse is off to a decent start. The main drawbacks, as I see them, are (1) almost all the answers involve air/hotel packages, and (2) when you specify a maximum flying time, the site tends to return only the most distant options and to overlook anything closer. Still, it’s an innovative approach to travel planning. If you’re unsure of where you want to go next — or of all the possible options available within your target budget — give it a try.
