Travel site finds the cheapest way to get there

There are plenty of sites out there dedicated to helping consumers find the cheapest plane tickets for a given trip. What we hadn’t seen until recently, however, is a site that looks beyond just airfares to identify the cheapest method of travel. Sure enough, Getset is a new site that helps consumers decide whether to go by plane, bus or automobile. Users of Canadian Getset, which is now in beta, simply enter their starting point and destination—currently, only U.S. cities with an airport and bus station are covered. Getset then calculates the costs of transportation by air, car and bus. It gets distance of travel from Google Maps, while gas mileage and price-per-gallon numbers come from the AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Airline prices are provided via Kayak, and bus prices come from Greyhound. The result Getset provides free of charge to the user, then, is a bottom-line comparison on how much each method of travel will cost them. Getset is working on adding train travel to its comparison mix; it’s also still adding cities to its list. We wouldn’t be surprised eventually to see the site factor in carbon footprint considerations as well, much the way the Carbon Diem mobile app does. Nevertheless, the premise is an interesting one, and ripe for emulation in other parts of the world.