(Bloomberg) — Sometimes you just have to get out of Dodge. But in 2022, last-minute trips are no small feat.
With packed planes, rising gas costs, rental car scarcity, and shifting Covid-19 protocols, the summer travel season—which many industry executives predicted would be the busiest ever—has already gotten off to an expensive, difficult start.
According to one survey conducted by the Points Guy, which polled 2,400 travelers and was released in early May, 41% of U.S. adults cited cost as the largest disruption to their summer plans. Data from AAA shows that average domestic airfares have risen by $160 per ticket, to $445, with fares on holiday weekends doubling from their norms. Home rental site Vacasa says 1 in 4 Americans are waiting for gas prices to drop before booking summer trips. And the consumer insights platform Zeta has just released survey findings showing that 62% of respondents were currently canceling plans because of inflation.
Enter a new feature from Google, released on May 2, that can pinpoint easier-access vacations in a pinch around the globe.
To find it, open the search giant’s Explore tool—an interactive map pre-populated with destinations and their respective flight prices—and look for the pushpin that says “Explore nearby.” It’ll zoom the map to the drivable radius around your hometown, suggesting local getaway spots on easy-to-scan cards that include riving distances (shown in hours, not miles) and flight prices alike. You can toggle around to extend or contract the radius; in some cases it will pair a cheap flight with a drive.
For example, from my home in New York City, a trip to the cute riverside town of Portsmouth, N.H., can be a $90 flight to Boston plus a 90-minute drive. Artsy Beacon, in the Hudson Valley, is an hour and a half away by car. Maybe you knew that—but had you considered Waterbury, Conn., with its family-oriented theme parks and train museum?
Google provides a quick sell on each destination by showing you a few popular points of interest in a streamlined display. If you’re intrigued, you can “view more things to see and do” to learn more, according to selections that may range from “kid-friendly” to “outdoors” to “art and culture,” depending on what actually applies to that place. And should you choose to book, there’s an easy interface for browsing local hotels and vacation rentals through Google’s travel booking platforms.
The new feature is a good start to untangling a perpetual planning problem—and one that’s especially onerous right now. Here are a few more tools and up-to-the-minute insights to pair it with, to get you through the summer.
For Rental Cars
For a coming weekend getaway departing from Brooklyn, the cheapest car available on Expedia was an economy option from Hertz for $65 per day. On the same dates—with short notice—new platform Kyte had the same style of car for $55 per day, delivered straight to my home address. There’s a nominal fee for the convenience at each end ($23 total on my booking), more than worth it to spare the time and hassle involved with lining up at a random rental car counter, with or without your luggage, on an already-hectic travel day—and maybe, even then, not getting a car.
Kyte, currently active in 14 cities across the U.S., adds to a landscape of alternative car rental businesses including Turo (like Airbnb for cars) and luxury option Silvercar (which only rents Audis, for a more predictable experience).
For Last-Minute Hotel Deals
Hotel prices will depend entirely on the destination—as well as the availability of last-minute deals. Data pulled exclusively for Bloomberg from Hopper make it clear in a few examples. In New York City, for instance, average hotel prices hover just below $180 if you’re booking three to four months out; booking within 10 or 20 days of arrival, you’ll find those numbers drop below $160. Las Vegas offers even deeper discounts at the eleventh hour, with hotel deals averaging $140, vs. $180 a night booking ahead.
All that is in direct contrast to beach and leisure destinations such as Miami, where prices rise steadily in the four months before a check-in date, starting around $140 and topping out near $200 on average.
Midweek stays, especially with business travel still stunted, provide noticeable value, if you’re flexible or able to work from anywhere. Hopper says starting your hotel reservation on a Thursday rather than Friday, for example, can save 25% on a weekend-long stay.
Don’t forget about Hotel Tonight, the first app to explicitly cater to the worst procrastinators. In 2020 it quietly rolled out a “Local Getaways” search tool that helps find availability within the coming week in nearby destinations. (I found an especially enticing deal for $340 rooms at Marram Montauk, where last summer prices typically hovered close to $1,000.)
“Daily Deals,” an even newer feature on the app, will reveal deeply discounted prices for hotels that don’t often have last-minute inventory and don’t want to publish low rates without some opacity. The same search we’d conducted for Long Island revealed a knockout Daily Deal for Topping Rose House, another extravagantly luxurious Hamptons stay. The price: $452 per night. On most summer weekends it’ll cost you upwards of $2,000.
If nothing else works, here’s a real travel editor trick: Check out just-opened or soon-to-open hotels, where reservation sheets may still contain plenty of availability and there may even be good deals for early adopters.
In the Hudson Valley, for instance, top-end resorts like Troutbeck have woefully limited reservation calendars, with X’s on almost every single weekend date through the end of August. But you could roll the dice on Little Cat Lodge, a promising luxury newcomer that’s opening this summer, and get a room for a reasonable $378 in July.
Finding those properties requires insider knowledge or a good dose of research, but industry blogs publish lists that you can use as a starting point. (As a rule with new hotels, though: Expect opening dates to slide.)
For Flights
Real talk: These days, last-minute flight deals are pretty nonexistent, and prices tend to only increase once you’re three weeks away from a departure. But new tools will help ensure you get the best price possible.
Just this week, Expedia introduced a feature called Price Match Promise that’ll automatically refund you the difference if the airfare you’ve booked drops in price. The cost fluctuates according to the fare; on $500 flights from the tri-state area to Cancún, for instance, I was quoted $43 protection per ticket. It’s similar to Hopper’s Price Drop Guarantee, a free feature that applies to fares that the site is recommending with a confident “buy” rating; it continues to track the prices on that route for 10 days after you book and refunds you if its algorithm made an incorrect recommendation.
If you have flexibility and like using Google Flights, a new option there lets you find fares to your preferred destination on “any dates,” by toggling a slider switch after your initial search parameters have been filled in.
And if price is really the make-or-break factor for where you go, there’s always Kayak’s Explore tool. An oldie-but-underrated-goodie that just keeps getting better as its parent company expands its abilities, the tool lets you scan the globe with real flight prices attached to any and every destination. Adjust the search for how much you’re willing to spend, how far you’re willing to go, or what type of trip you want to take, and it’ll show you only the relevant options.
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