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Where can you fly for $500? $1000? Or more?

Where can you fly for $500? $1000? Or more?

Occasionally, when I have nothing better to do, I like to torture myself dream a little.

Usually that involves looking at house listings; occasionally it starts with me looking at rental listings, but that gets depressing real quick so it never lasts long.

Occasionally I indulge in a bit of travel lust. A lot of that comes to me without me even lifting a finger. I get so many travel emails – Grabaseat alerts, Travelcafe deals, and lots of travel agency offers.

But if I’m so inclined, I head over to Kayak Explore. 

From this screen, I can see what it costs to fly basically anywhere in the world from my city.

So, where does my money get me from Auckland?

For $522, I can fly to Apia, Samoa. (Beaches! Turtles! Rainforests! Markets!)

For $1193, I can fly to Bangkok, Thailand. (Cheap drinks! Fantastic food! Temples!)

For $2,072, I can fly to Vienna, Austria. (The city where Before Sunrise is set!)

For $3,254, I can fly to Vladivostok, Russia. (I’m not sure why I would want to go there … but St Petersburg is still on my wishlist!)

And that is why people go on ‘the big OE’ – it’s just too darn expensive to travel regularly from little old New Zealand when it’s minimum $2k return to the likes of Europe or North American.

Where can you fly to for these dollar amounts?

(Not a sponsored post, but I’d be more than happy to accept compensation … just sayin’!)

21 thoughts on “Where can you fly for $500? $1000? Or more?

  • Reply The Asian Pear August 19, 2014 at 07:30

    From Toronto:
    For $500, I can go to San Francisco, Seattle, The Bahamas.
    For $1000, I can go to Turkey, Cairo, Beijing, Taiwan, Mumbai.

    For me to get to Australia & NZ, it’ll cost me $1800 – $2400. *cringe* I guess I better save up… *pouts*

  • Reply The Asian Pear August 19, 2014 at 07:48

    I should point out that Christchurch, NZ, it’ll cost me $2792 to get there. The most expensive location listed on Kayak for me. O_O!

  • Reply Genie August 19, 2014 at 08:14

    I do the same thing. Pretending to spend money I don’t have and browsing my options. They say planning a holiday is almost as good for your soul as actually taking a holiday. That’s sounds good enough for me.

  • Reply Sally August 19, 2014 at 08:34

    So Fun! I do this all the time too.

    From LAX…
    $500 – Caribbean, NYC during peak travel, Hawaii mid-peak
    $800 – Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
    $1000 – London Heathrow
    $1400 – Paris in the middle of July

  • Reply Cait Flanders August 19, 2014 at 10:10

    For $300-600, I can fly to most places in North America.
    For $800-1,000, I can go to London.
    For $1,300, I can go to Athens.
    To come see you, I’d need $2,100. Whew! Maybe one day. 🙂

  • Reply debs@debtdebs August 19, 2014 at 11:30

    Ok, now I’m wracking my brain to figure out what the Big OE is? HALP!

  • Reply Kassandra @ More Than Just Money August 19, 2014 at 14:12

    Based on where I am for $500 – $1000 I can buy a plane ticket for throughout the US, Canada and the Caribbean. In low season, I could land in several few European countries as well. I like the way you think 😉

  • Reply Silvia August 19, 2014 at 16:57

    Love this game, though it’s a dangerous one. I’ve definitely found myself impulsively booking a ticket when I was meant to just be “window shopping.” Haha

  • Reply Untemplater August 19, 2014 at 18:23

    Flights are so frickin expensive these days. I miss the days when it would cost $300 to fly cross country. I think the last time I flew back East it cost close to $700. I miss cheap airfare!

  • Reply Stefanie @ The Broke and Beautiful Life August 20, 2014 at 01:02

    Ouch, that’s really expensive. I’ve been finding some great flight deals recently. Going round trip to San Antonio, Texas from NYC at the end of the month for $250.

  • Reply Ryan @ Impersonal Finance August 20, 2014 at 03:57

    I had no idea that site existed. I’ll be sure to go punish myself by searching it momentarily… thanks for sharing 🙂

  • Reply Stephany August 20, 2014 at 05:12

    Oh, this is a fun game!

    Flying from Tampa…
    For $100-$500, I could fly to most places in the US
    For $400-$1,000, I could fly to Canada, Hawaii, or Alaska
    For $900, I could fly to London
    For $1,100, I could fly to Rome
    For $1,800, I could fly to Australia
    And for about $2,400, I could visit you!

  • Reply Mario August 20, 2014 at 09:08

    For $500, looks like I can get to the Caribbean side of South America

    I’m not sure why I don’t do this more often…

  • Reply Amanda @ MoveLoveEat August 20, 2014 at 11:14

    Great post! I didn’t know you could do that with kayak so now I know what I’m going to do when it’s crappy weather like this and I’m dreaming of getting out of Auckland!

  • Reply Michelle August 20, 2014 at 15:14

    For $400 I could fly to Bogota, Colombia
    For $959-I could fly to Copenhagen, Denmark
    For $1400-I could fly to Johannesburg, South Africa
    For $1500-I could fly to Phuket, Thailand

    This Kayak explore is way too addictive!

  • Reply Amanda August 20, 2014 at 18:39

    A few months ago, I booked a return flight to New York for new years, and paid ONLY $1298. Usually I’d preface my use of the word “only”, but I’m sure you understand — it’s meant to be at LEAST a grand more than that! Then, on Monday, I booked at $1.5k (return) flight to London for mid-Feb until early March. My “justification” for that was, since I’d saved a grand on what I’d budgeted to spend on a flight to NYC + have people to stay with in both cities, I’m set! haha. All hail spontaneous, crazy stupid shit that broke students with a little bit of money needs to do to stay sane.

  • Reply Jayson @ Monster Piggy Bank August 20, 2014 at 23:12

    Can’t believe if that I can fly to Samoa for $522. That place is what I’ve been dreaming for. My friends have been there already and they say that it’s really nice and one of a kind. Thanks for sharing this.

  • Reply Kate@GoodnightDebt August 21, 2014 at 00:19

    How did I not know about this feature? I’ve been looking for such a tool and I’m a regular kayak user. Failure on my part.
    For $404 I can get to Anchorage, AK
    For $751 I can get to Honolulu, HI
    For $951 I can get to Moscow.
    For $1807 I can get to Auckland!
    But bummer… I went to go book these flights or at least see more information and I could get any flight prices anywhere near these prices 🙁

    • Reply eemusings August 21, 2014 at 08:59

      Really? The thing to remember is that those prices are low because they are for pretty specific dates, so if you click through you should see those same low fares, (I can) but if you then change the dates then the prices may change as well.

  • Reply Leslie Beslie August 21, 2014 at 23:11

    500: I can get all of North America, Central America, and a teeny part of S. America
    $1,000: Additionally, most of Europe, some of the middle east, China,Russia, a little of Africa
    $1,5000: Additionally, Africa, Thailand,
    New Zealand: (Auckland) $1,575

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