How to Find Cheap Places to Fly From Your Airport With One API

I wanted a feature that answered one question for a reader: "here is my home airport, where can I actually afford to go?" Every flight tool I reached for wanted a fixed origin and destination first. Google Travel Explore does answer the open question, showing a map of destinations with prices and dates, but it lives inside a browser and there is no clean way to pull the result set into code. So I built an API around it.

The Google Travel Explore API takes a departure airport and returns a ranked list of destinations as structured JSON, each with an estimated flight price, a hotel price, and suggested dates.

What it returns

One JSON row per destination, with:

- Destination name, country, and airport with GPS coordinates
- Estimated round-trip flight price from your airport
- Estimated nightly hotel price
- Suggested start and end dates for the trip
- Flight duration and number of stops
- A Google Travel link for the route

One run can batch several departure airports, and every row exports cleanly to JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Run it in three steps

Open the Google Travel Explore API and click Try for free. Set a departure airport like ATL, or batch several. Run it and download the dataset. That is the whole loop, and there is no map to pan or card to copy by hand.

Use it as a REST API

Every run is a normal REST call, so you can trigger it from any language or a cron job:

POST /v2/acts/johnvc~google-travel-explore-api/runs
Host: api.apify.com
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN
Content-Type: application/json

{ "departureId": "ATL", "maxResultsPerDeparture": 25 }

The run writes its rows to a dataset you can read back as JSON or CSV.

Wire it into Claude with MCP

The Actor is MCP-ready, so Claude, Claude Code, and Cursor can call it as a live tool. Ask "where can I fly from JFK for under $400 with a hotel under $120 a night" and the agent filters real priced rows instead of guessing at fares. You can read more about Claude and Claude Code at claude.ai.

What people build with it

Travel content sites use it for "where can I go on a budget" features, agencies pitch clients ranked ideas instead of one-off quotes, and deal newsletters watch specific hubs. Twenty departure cities ship as ready-made tasks: browse them on the examples tab, or start from cheapest places to fly from New York and export travel destinations to CSV. The full write-up lives on the Peerlist project page.

FAQ About Scraping Google Travel Explore

Where does the data come from and how fresh is it?

The scraper returns the ranked destination list Google Travel Explore shows for your departure airport, localized by your country and language settings. Prices are Google's estimates for the suggested dates, refreshed on each run, so a scheduled task builds a running history of how reachable destinations and prices shift.

How do I call it as an API and what does it cost?

Trigger a run with a single REST POST and read the dataset back as JSON or CSV. Billing is per destination returned, and maxResultsPerDeparture (default 50, max 200) caps the count before a run starts, so cost stays predictable. New Apify accounts include free credit that covers a first exploration.

Can an AI agent use this without writing code?

Yes. Over MCP the Actor becomes a tool Claude or any MCP client can call directly, and each row arrives with price, dates, and duration attached, so the agent can filter and recommend in one step.

Are the prices exact bookable fares?

No, and it is worth being clear: flight and hotel figures are estimates built for discovery, not checkout. For a live, bookable itinerary on a specific route, pair this with a flights-level search.

Can an AI agent pay for this scraper in USDC with x402?

Yes. The Google Travel Explore API supports agentic payments via the x402 protocol, so AI agents and MCP clients can pay for runs in USDC on Base with no Apify account or API token. Point your agent at the Apify MCP server and it can discover, pay for, and run the scraper autonomously; the Apify x402 announcement has the details.

Questions or a destination that looks off? Open an issue on the Actor page and I usually reply within a day.