If you love to travel, you’re probably somewhat snobbish about the gazillions of trip planning tools. I’ve always been hesitant to use them. Where is the fun in automating your entire trip? It’s nice to get creative beyond whatever Expedia is recommending as a bestseller.

Wanderfly is a trip planning tool with a difference. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve used before, and for once, it shows the unique appeal of the destinations on offer.

You simply select where you’re leaving from and define what you’re interested in (art vs extreme sports, adventure vs nightlife)

Choose a budget per person, a time for traveling, and the intended duration of the trip. Once you’re done, hit the search button and lo and behold – Wanderfly churns out a huge variety of destinations, each presented with a rich illustrated background to give you a flavour of what to expect.

It’s the visual presentation that makes Wanderfly so addictive to use.

Instead of just listing out hotel prices and the things to do – which are only a click away if you need them – each destination is themed in such a way that you can probably tell just by looking if it’s a viable travel option.

My only complaint with the service is the heavy American bias.

There are American cities listed that must surely only be desirable to travel to if you’re actually living in America and on a very tight budget.

It skews the results somewhat, in the same way that a UK based service would seem very out of touch if it recommended Skegness to anybody outside Skegness.

No offence, Skegness. I’m sure you’re beautiful inside.

The occasional dodgy recommendation aside, Wanderfly is well worth a look if you’re feeling the travel bug on your Friday afternoon.

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