A New Favorite Web Resource: Rome2Rio.com

You have to wonder if technology will eventually take all the fun out of travel planning, especially when you come across a site like Rome2Rio.com. This is simply an amazing website, destined to be our go-to-resource for travel planning.

In the old days (as in last month), if I were trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B, the process went something like this: identify the airports nearest points A and B, find flights between points A and B, then determine if it’s possible to take public transit (train, bus, ferry, hang glider, etc.) to point A’s airport and from point B’s airport. If the latter isn’t possible, then plan to walk or rent a car. Rome2Rio turns that process on its ear.

Let’s say Lori and I wanted to go to the Seychelles (we do, actually). Having done all our lodging research we realize we need to get to the town of Victoria, Seychelles where our beachside hotel is located. In the Rome2Rio search box on the main page, we enter our Point A, not as the Atlanta airport, but our true starting point, as in our hometown of Alpharetta, or even as precise as our house address. Then we enter our Point B with similar precision. Then we click Search and magic happens.

The Rome2Rio Search Results Page

For the cartophiles out there, you are presented with a map that shows your transit options, including all legs and means of travel for the options Rome2Rio can devise for you. To the left of the map you get detailed information about those options. In my example, Rome2Rio offers two transit options, marked clearly with circled numbers 1 and 2.

My first option is to “Fly to Mahe Island”. In this option, Rome2Rio advises that I will need to walk 827 feet to the bus station nearest my starting address, then I will need to take bus number 185 to the North Springs Station. From there I take the train (Atlanta’s MARTA) to the airport where I can hop a flight to Mahe Island. From there I’ll drive to Victoria. Where possible, Rome2Rio even gives me estimates of my fares for each leg.

Unfortunately, there are no direct flights from Atlanta to Mahe Island. To research my flight options, I simply click on that leg in the list of options and Rome2Rio pops out a slick listing of flight combinations that get me from Atlanta to Mahe Island, including a thoughtful link to the airline where I can book it. Similarly, when I’ll need to rent a car Rome2Rio provides a link to check rental car prices.

While my first option is the shortest at 27 1/2 hours, the second option, which involves a 1-hour ferry as the last leg of my journey, may be preferred: either because it costs less, or simply because I’d like to ride that ferry (the travel is often part of the fun, after all). So they haven’t taken all the fun out of research, as I at least have to weigh our Rome2Rio options.

So while my hat is off to the Rome2Rio team for creating such an awesome product, I’m sorta sad that I no longer have to spend hours figuring out how to piece our travel together. Oh well; if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see if I can stump Rome2Rio…how do you get from Lampang, Thailand to Rio Branco, Brazil anyway?