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How far can I go? is a travel site from Air New Zealand that offers travelers a unique perspective on their travel arrangements. Instead of finding flights based on destination or time, it focuses on allowing travelers to see how far they can get with a specific budget. In map based display, users determine their starting location and the budget they have for traveling. As the user interactively drags the budget slider more (or less) travel options become available as new flight paths spiral out of the starting location. As of yet, the site shows only direct flights - no connecting flights appear on screen - but the site is configurable so that users are able to select different fares.
This is quite a novel approach to travel. Most websites allow users to find flights by asking for the start and end location, and giving the best rates. What makes this system different is that more flexible or budget conscious travelers can get a quick sense of possible flights from their perspective. Travelers can browse many possibilities, instead of starting with specific ideas and evaluating those
This is an interesting example of an user centered map and is reminiscent of the personal world map. The logical continuation here is to present this as a general purpose visualization framework for travel that can be customized based on a particular user need. One could imagine a bar that showed the number of connections, length of the trip, and so on as a similar visualization. Another interesting possibility would be to allow one to save preferences or use it as a widget. Frequent flyers would surely enjoy being able to see where they could go every weekend at a glance
