The other day Randon and I were talking and came up with the idea of having a trip planner on the website to help people compare cities when traveling on multi-segment trips, especially to those places with which you might be unfamiliar. And now we’ve released the trip planner.
We think the most useful feature is the ability to see if your favorite budget airline travels to the cities you’ve selected so you can better arrange travel dates, if you have that flexibility. As always, if you have any ideas to make the feature better, please let us know. It’s always a work in progress.
Thanks to a user’s suggestion, we now have a new way to search for the city in which you’re interested. There is a large box at the top of the home page, and then every other page has the search box in the top right corner (this page too). Start typing and some suggestions will appear. Click on whichever city you want. It will find a match based on airport code, the city’s name or state, residency program, or medical school. The interactive map on the home page still works, but this adds another way for users to search.
This morning we finished posting all of the national car rental companies to the city pages. Now you’ll be able to find a list of all the car rental companies at each airport. If you find any budget car rental companies we have missed, please let us know (using the contact feature above).
Not too many people have heard about Skybus. I hadn’t either until I interviewed at Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In making travel arrangements I found that they had a terminal in nearby Greensboro, North Carolina.
What’s special about Skybus? First, they’re extremely inexpensive. Second, the first 10 seats on every flight are $10. That’s convenient if you buy tickets months and months in advance, but it’s usually not all that useful. Thankfully, their savings carries over to regular fares.
Why so inexpensive? You pay for food and drinks on board (if you want them), you pay additional to check bags (~$10, as I recall), they don’t have a customer service phone number–only internet, and they only have one way flights. If you schedule a multi-segment flight with Skybus and you have checked bags, you have to claim them at baggage and re-check them. But all of these things drastically reduce tickets prices.
Their two main hubs are in Columbus, OH and Greensboro, NC. But they fly to a surprising number of cities throughout the country. I flew them once and will look to take them in the future if my travel plans can allow. They may go to a smaller airport, but the great savings is often worth it.
I have been to Seattle twice, once in October and once in January. Needless to say it was rainy and cold both times. However I don’t think the locals seemed to notice, with their shorts and ominously absent umbrellas as if it was only a matter of minutes until the sunshine would return. Fortunately, the public transportation in this beautiful city is a lot less hectic than dealing with its weather.
Airport Ground Transportation Dilemma - The Seattle Airport is about 16 miles away from downtown which puts the traveler at the mercy of the cab or shuttle driver who is eagerly awaiting those two 20 dollar bills you have in your pocket. For someone like myself who just isn’t willing enough to part with the cash just keep walking all the way until the end of the airport. In other words keep dragging your bags all the way to the other side of the baggage carousels and their you will find what you are looking for. For about 2$ you can take the 174 (local) or 194 (express) to downtown Seattle. They take about 30-40 minutes to get downtown and get to the airport every 30 minutes. To be honest it couldn’t be easier to hop on the bus slide your two bills in and relax all the way downtown. On the other hand I heard you do get a free bottle of water if you take one of those 20$ shuttles. The best thing is that you get a transfer that you can use on any bus for the next 5 hours; so if you have to switch buses downtown keep your wallet in your pocket because you won’t need it. Oh and of course the city bus drivers usually (sarcasm) don’t work for tips and that won’t be an issue either. To make things even easier you can plan the whole trip using the links on the Seattle City Page of SmartMedTravel.com
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