As you know, we’re obsessed with taking the agony out of travel and providing you with the best options for your unique needs. In our dedication to make all traveling easier, we’re very excited to announce the availability of regional business jet service through our new partner, Linear Air. Now, business travelers and jetsetters alike will be able to fly from and between cities that are typically poorly served by commercial airlines. Oftentimes, flying these routes on major carriers can result in two or three connections—talk about agonizing!
With Linear, you don’t have to worry about crowds or long security lines at airports, getting frisked by TSA, or paying baggage fees. No hassles whatsoever. Just you and your colleagues or family pulling up to a private terminal, meeting the pilots and getting on your way. We’re especially proud to be the first and only U.S. travel site to include private jets in our search and mitigate what could be an agonizing experience.
Here’s how you’ll be able to find Linear Air in Hipmunk search:
Begin your search by selecting more than one passenger in coach, or a first or business class cabin.
Or select “business jet” from the class drop down menu:
Next, click “search,” and we’ll show you Linear Air flights alongside commercial flights and trains when appropriate.
You’ll also notice we jazzed up the Linear Air timebars with their own color and our first class icon in the upper right corner of the bar.
When you want to book the flight, select each leg, and we’ll send you directly to Linear Air’s website to book online, immediately - a first in the world of business jets.
Currently, you can book Linear Air on Hipmunk from nine origin airports (BOS, BED, BVY, EWR, HPN, JFK, LGA, OWD, TEB) to over 2,000 hub and regional airports east of the Mississippi and within 700 miles of the origin city. We’re pleased to offer this innovative private jet option as a new way to lower your travel agony.
Happy and safe travels!
— Jacqueline
This is a Hipmunk post from Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads
Via the great curators at This is Colossal, a jaw-dropping video of the a giant rope swing, looped over Corona Arch in Moab, Utah. The video was shot by Salt Lake’s Devin Graham.
If you’re interested in more, check out Devin’s equally entertaining “making of” video here.
Still not enough? This 280m freefall in Kjerag, Norway (in the Southwest) ought to do the trick. With a total freefall of 360m (1181 feet), it’s dizzying to watch let alone leap off a cliff and try!
-Jodi
This is a Hipmunk post from Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads
I may be biased - after all my Hipmunk avatar does have me holding chopsticks - but for me the best fruit there is takes the form of a purple tomato-esque treat with a green leafy stem. Mangosteens are originally thought be from the Moluccas (those same Indonesian islands as cloves, mace and nutmeg) and are now found throughout Southeast Asia.
I’m back in Thailand and one of the first things I did was eat as many of these as I could handle:
So what do they taste like?
I describe it as a cross between a lychee and an apricot. Other, like F.W. Burbidge who tried the fruit in 1880, though that it tastes “…something like that of the finest nectarine, but with a dash of strawberry and pineapple added.”
Photo by Flickr user Matsuyuki
While the mangosteen isn’t widely found in (or imported to) North America, it’s easy to locate in Southeast Asia from February through May. For those visiting the region, it’s something you shouldn’t miss!
-Jodi
February is the designated month of love, and we’ve been overwhelmed by the hipmunk love we see on facebook, twitter and throughout the blogosphere all year round.
Now it’s our turn to give back some love with a chance to win a unique hotel experience.
When you head to our homepage, you’ll notice the cupid ‘munk who will be your guide to sharing the love. Let him know who is in need of a little hipmunk in their lives—whether they’re heading to their sister’s wedding in San Diego, planning a multi-city business trip, or just need a little smile to start their day—the cupid ‘munk will shoot a note over to your friend via email.
If you log in or create an account before sharing some hipmunk love with a friend between today and the end of the month (Feb 29…woo hoo, leap year!), we’ll enter you for a chance to win a $500 Mr & Mrs Smith Hotel Collection Get a Room! gift card. Our friends at Mr & Mrs Smith have some chic and fantastique boutique hotels in their global portfolio including some fabulous ones on our own continent in Los Angeles, NYC, Boston, and Montreal.
On March 1, we’ll randomly select one person who shared the love and post the winner’s name to our blog.
The finer print: we encourage you to share the love with all of your friends; however, to make sure nasty spammers don’t steal all of the fun, each person will only be entered to win once. See the official rules here.
And, as you know, we aim to take the agony out of your travel. So while you’re on the site, make sure to log in or create an account, and save your airline and hotel preferences. Also sign up for our newsletter and follow us on facebook and twitter to get sneak peeks, exclusive promotions and savvy travel tips. We promise we will never spam you.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
- Jacqueline
This is a Hipmunk post from Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads
This one goes out to those of you celebrating Valentine’s Day and also fans of Game of Thrones.
Buzzfeed has posted these great cards from artist Chris Bishop. For the full-sized cards, head on over to their post.
Not a Game of Thrones enthusiast? XKCD has a comic for that very special Valentine’s Day dilemma.
Internationally, Uzbekistan cancelled Valentine’s Day and Thailand imposed a 10pm curfew for all teens under 18.
-Jodi
This is a Hipmunk post from Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads
With winter in full swing (and some of the coldest temperatures on record in Eastern Europe) I wanted to highlight these stunning macro photos of snowflakes, taken by photographer Matthias Lenke:
Says photographer Matthias Lenke:
I must confess that I never cared about snowflakes too much … until I read an article about the uniqueness of each crystal. So I took my gear to the balcony and made some “field stacks“. And yes … if you are able to have a closer look, these fractal shapes are pretty fascinating. Each snowflake is a small geometric miracle.
To see the rest of Matthias’ gorgeous photos, see his full Flickr gallery. For more macro photography of snowflakes - this time in color - check out Brian Valentine’s work. (h/t to This is Colossal).
-Jodi
This is a Hipmunk post from Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads
Though I’ve been travelling around the world for the last 4 years, I am the first to admit that I’ve seen only one small part of what my country’s national parks and those of the United States have to offer. With such vast spaces and varied landscapes, months of discovery are needed to see them all. Take, for example, these 3000 ft tall Vermillion Cliffs in Arizona, shot by photographer Richard Barnes:
As National Geographic notes in their January 2012 magazine,
It’s hard to believe that a national monument girded by towering cliffs—their color burning through the spectrum as the day advances—could be so little known. Yet few people have heard of the place, apart from one or two of its famous features. One reason is that Vermilion Cliffs National Monument is upstaged by its neighbors, which include some of the most famous national parks and monuments in the United States: Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and more.
Adding it to the bucket list, stat!
For those in the region, note that there are few marked trails and rangers found in the bigger National Parks, so it’s quite an undertaking to visit, and one where preemptive planning is necessary. Additional info, maps and camping sites for the adventure-seekers among you Hipmunks can be found on the Arizona Bureau of Land Management’s site.
-Jodi
This is a Hipmunk post from Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads
I came across Evan Drolet Cook’s “Places I Haven’t Been” map this week and wanted to share it here.
So much of our online world is showing what we’ve done that we sometimes lose sight of the other side of the coin, the things we still want to see and do. This tongue-in-cheek map, is the perfect visual companion to those thoughts.
When I first saw the map, I thought of the bulletin board I put together before I left on my round-the-world trip, pinning all the places I’d already seen prior to the longer-term travels. Perhaps I ought to have pinned the places I wanted to go, or the sites that enticed me instead - it would have been a far more inspiring map.
Evan’s got a whole slew of other fun, quirky projects on his portfolio site.
h/t to Lauren for the initial find.
Do any of you have maps that inspire you? Please leave URLs or photos in the comments!
-Jodi
This is a Hipmunk post from Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads
Some of the most evocative travel photography is the kind that makes you see something normal in a totally different light. Take the photo below, a bird’s eye view of Baja California desert in Mexico, taken by Adriana Franco:
Hard to believe that this is a desert image and not a delicate hand-painted canvas of furrowed branches and trees. We all know that nature is beautiful, but sometimes it’s a surprise to see it shifted into an unexpected form.
For a few more shots of the desert from above, see Adriana’s gallery on National Geographic.
-Jodi