Planning a vacation should be a fun experience, but it often turns into a stressful one. Trying to plan a trip that is full of fun activities and a beautiful hotel situation while still being affordable can sometimes feel close to impossible. One major thing you have to take into consideration is the weather — and it's extra frustrating, because you don't even have any control over it. Still, planning around the weather can definitely be helpful — and now one airline is making that even easier. Norwegian Air recently launche a temperature-based map, which is, in other words, a genius new feature aiming to allow passengers to book flights based on the weather they want.
The feature is an interactive map that allows you to choose a destination based on what the weather will be like. You can choose from more than 40 of Norwegian's destinations and then find the best time to visit based on the forecast. It's a a great tool to use if you know what kind of weather you want, but you aren't sure exactly where you want to go. It allows you to see your options laid out in front of you without forcing you to search for a bunch of different things in a search engine. It's just more streamlined, which is always appreciated.
To use the map, you can first pick where you want to fly from. You then choose the month you're planning on traveling during (or you can do it several times for different months to compare the forecasts). Once you do that, you can pick the budget you have in mind, and you can then choose the temperature you'd like your destination to be on a scale. You can further customize the search by type of destination, like city breaks, ski and snow, or sun and sea.
Once you choose all of this, the map shows you the options you have (if you're flying Norwegian Air, of course). For example, I looked for a trip in September 2018 from New York to somewhere the temps would be eight degrees Celsius, which is 46 degrees Fahrenheit. My option? Iceland. When I changed it to 21 degrees Celsius (roughly 70 degrees Fahrenheit), I was offered a whole bunch of other destinations that are supposed to be that temperature at that time of year.
Again, this is limited to Norwegian Air flights, but the airline does offer routes to over 40 destinations — locations like London, Copenhagen, Paris, and Hamburg are all on the list.
This is the perfect tool to use if you have no idea where you want to go. Maybe you're just thinking, "I want to be somewhere warm during December." Using this tool gives you your destination options and the airfare options all in one. It's simple and fast, which is really exactly what you want when booking a trip.
Now we just need to cross our fingers that other airlines will follow Norwegian's lead. Honestly, airlines make you jump through so many hoops that it's nice to see one is making things easier rather than more complicated.
