I am hesitant about including budgets, mainly because they can be so misleading, and it's hard to actually get that price once you start booking. I had included "staring from $xxx RT", but then commented it out just prior to launch.

But you just gave me another idea.

jngreenlee: I was actually thinking about the map yesterday, but couldn't think about a good way to visualize so it doesn't look like another google maps mashup with pins. Your idea with air routes is interesting, hope you don't mind if I just go ahead and borrow them? :)

Also note that the distance to travel is proportional to the amount of time to get there. Perhaps you can do a shaded contour showing travel time?

(Spending 8 hours on a plane is essentially a whole day gone.)

That's a very good point, thank you.

kayak.com/explore solves this problem for ya.

no it doesn't, not for me or anyone I know at least. I can elaborate.

Ahh, I see that it didn't draw the lines but it handles the budget constraints while dynamically updating the map.

Main problem, in my opinion, is that most solutions are airport-centric. Say you want to Ski in Alta UT. You can't typically book travel from NYC to Alta, you have to specify "from" JFK/LGA (or NYC) to "SLC", assuming you know exactly where you are going, what the best airport is to fly to etc.

Some let you select "ski" destinations (as Kayak Explore does), so it may send you to SLC (Salt Lake City), show you weather for Salt Lake City, then try to up-sell you on a hotel in Salt Lake City (or maybe Sandy UT).

Mine's is destination centric. Where you fly to, where you check the weather, where you ski, and where you book your hotel (or even buy lift tickets from) are not necessarily the same "place". Make sense?