The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Senseable City Laboratory in Singapore has developed an interactive map called Escape, which finds the cheapest, fastest and most popular flights around the globe from any location. The data is displayed visually with the local currency of the country of departure displayed.
The visual search tool uses fare aggregators from Skyscanner and Kiwi to find the best flights. The results are then displayed on the world map and colour-coded according to cost. Green represents cheaper flights and red the most expensive. We gave the tool a spin and when we put in flights from Cape Town to ‘Anywhere’ the results were displayed on this map below, with prices in Rands.
You can add filters to your search such as popular destinations, short flights, or easy visa requirements or you could filter by continent. Escape will then display the cheapest destination in each country. You can then select to see what flights cost to each airport in that country. When we put in Johannesburg to ‘Africa’ we got the results below.
We then got more specific and entered Johannesburg to Cairo. The information that came up was displayed in a list, much like other fare aggregators, however the list like the map was colour-coded.
While the website is not entirely revolutionary, it may just be one of the easiest ways to find the cheapest flight for your next vacation.
Images: greatescape.co
