Making a travel budget? Here’s a starting point

What type of vacation can you afford? This interactive map can help you make smart travel decisions.

Name: Vacation Cost Finder

What it does: It’s an interactive map that takes your travel choices (domestic or international, beach, city or adventure, as well as four levels of daily spending) and calculates destinations in your price range.

What’s hot: This is a solid start to your travel planning. Once you make your selections, scan the interactive world map and click on the pinned destinations that are within your budget. The average cost per day covers a one-mile taxi ride, three meals and one night in a hotel. When I tested International, Beach and two dollar signs ($150-$199 per day), it resulted in Cartagena, Colombia, for $167.79 per day; Cape Town, South Africa, for $170.10 per day; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for $176.09 per day; and La Oliva, Spain, for $167.23 per day.

What’s not: It doesn’t seem to consider the cost of your flight. You also don’t know what kind of hotel you’ll get. These are averages based on hotel prices from Hotels.com, so use it to get a rough idea before you dig deeper into travel planning on other sites. I’d also like to see a content partner attached to the interactive map to take travel planning to the next level.

travel@latimes.com