Working out how to fly

[deborah]

This is a really basic question, and I feel embarrassed to ask it.

I want to fly somewhere. How do I work out a good route? For instance, I want to go to the Galapagos Islands, so I type in Canberra (where I live) and Equador. It won't proceed without a date, so I give it one, and I find that every route goes via Sydney AND Los Angeles AND Atlanta or some other strange combination.

I can't believe that I HAVE to go to the US - let alone TWO US airports. Everything takes a long time from Australia (just back from Turkey which took 32 hours including wait times), so I would probably be happy to have a stopover somewhere I want to visit (the US is lower down my list to visit than a lot of other places).

Is there some web site I should be looking at the shows plane routes, and possibilities? SO suggested that I might be able to go via NZ and Easter Island (which would be much more interesting AND direct than diverting into the northern hemisphere). But I don't know how to find out about these things - it certainly isn't coming up as a possibility. The only NZ possibilities appear to include San Diego.

This is really the first time I am trying to work out these things for myself, rather than getting a travel agent involved, and I feel like I am failing Travel 101.

[lpep]

Try Google flights! It's new and awesome: flights.google.com.

The best feature is that you can put in destinations and click on the little calendar icon, and it brings up the lowest prices by date. It also searches lots of different airline options, so you can probably find better layovers :)

Good luck!

[Ricky]

Google Flights definitely isn't new.

There's also Kayak.com

[ShoulderThingThatGoesUp]

It looks like you can fly from Sydney to Santiago, Chile. I'd think one could work out something a lot faster that way.

I can't imagine how painful flying from Sydney to Dallas/Fort Worth is. Amazing that they're able to fill that plane.

[mozar]

There's this new start up that lets you see connecting flights for different airlines. So if delta goes into galapagos, you can connect with southwest. I can't remember the name though. Try googling different search terms. I can't because I'm at work.

[KCM5]

Also try Rome2Rio - they give all routes (flights, trains, bus, ferry). Not that you would need that for this, but it's nice when planning travel.

[mozar]

skiplagged.com

[JLR]

I'd heard about some people going via NZ to South America so did a little looking. It looks like you can go from Syd to Baltra (Galapagos Islands) for AU$2702.48 rtn with LAN for random dates I chose in September.

Unfortunately, it is 42 hours of travel time there and 51 coming home (Syd-Auckland-Santiago De Chile-Lima-Quito-Guayaquil-Baltra). How does that compare with your US routes?