Thank you, I just "launched" the site a couple of days ago, so nobody knows about it except my FB friends. Airport data is open-source, although it needed some cleaning (to filter out things like railroad stations etc), weather forecasts are from Wunderground, but the main asset is Destinations. They've been hand-picked (a la Mechanical Turk), although the list is growing. Mainly focusing on ski destinations now, so the starting data set is places that I find interesting for whatever reason. I am experimenting with a couple of other data feeds, trying to gauge their relevance. The list of recommendations you are shown is not random, more interesting places (with better conditions at the time) bubble up.
Traditional travel sites are airport-centric. Say you want to Ski in Alta UT. Most would try to 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". Does this clarify things somewhat?
P.S. Just checked real-time Google Analytics, you guys (HN are awesome, stress testing the site :). Do you think I should do a "show HN" at some point?
I love that you're using Mechanical Turk. Thanks for the explanation and congratulations on launching!
I would love to have my own flight search engine, I think there's still loads of room for improvement even with Kayak (a billion dollar + comapany), Hipmunk, Skyscanner out there
This is awesome! I noticed that the "Search for the Lowest Air Fares" page seems different in design from the other pages. Are the forms embedded from another site? Which site did you use?
