# Side-trip

> Finds journeys made of two separate one-way flights with a multi-day stay in a
> city between them, and compares the total against flying direct.

Two one-way tickets with a few days in a city between them often cost less than
a single direct fare. Side-trip prices both legs through every city that could
plausibly sit on the way, and shows the combinations that beat the direct
flight.

## How it differs from a normal flight search

A **connection** is one ticket with a wait in a terminal, constrained by
interline agreements and minimum connection times. A **side-trip** is two
independently bought one-way tickets with days in between, constrained by
nothing. Conventional flight search will not sell that journey, because it is
not one product.

Concretely: Paris to Dubai direct costs €677. Paris to Larnaca (€104) plus
Larnaca to Dubai (€111) four days later costs €215 — both nonstop, on Cyprus
Airways, and you get four days in Cyprus.

## Rules the search enforces

- **Both legs are nonstop.** A leg that itself connects puts the traveller back
  in a terminal, which is the thing a side-trip replaces.
- **Stays are measured in days, not hours.** Two days minimum. An airport
  transit is explicitly not this product.
- **Two separate tickets means two separate bookings.** No airline is
  responsible for the whole journey. The multi-day gap is what makes that risk
  small, but it is real and stated on every result.
- **Options that cost far more than flying direct are hidden**, not ranked last.

## What the prices are

Real fares from flight data providers — Travelpayouts for screening, SerpApi for
live confirmation. Nothing is estimated, interpolated, or generated. Where a
value cannot be verified it is left blank rather than filled in.

Cached fares are labelled "recent fare" rather than presented as live quotes,
because airline pricing moves constantly. Every result links out to a booking
site to confirm.

The single exception is **cost-of-living estimates** for a stopover city, which
are estimates, always labelled as such, and never mixed into the flight total.

## What it is not

Side-trip does not sell tickets, take payment, or hold bookings. Every result
links out to a booking site — Aviasales, Skyscanner, Kiwi, Kayak — where the two
flights are bought separately. Revenue is affiliate commission, which does not
change the price paid and does not affect ranking: results are ordered by price
against the direct fare, and the cheapest option wins whether or not it earns
anything.

## Links

- [Side-trip](https://side-trip.com/): the search itself