Flight search engine Skyscanner has a really fun feature where you can put in your departure airport and select the destination as “Everywhere.”
This will show you the cheapest places to fly on the date you want to travel. We haven’t booked a flight off Hawaii yet, so I’ve just been running some searches using this feature. We eventually want to make our way to NYC, but are planning on making another stop on the mainland US before going to New York.
Portland is probably my first choice since I’ve never been there but I wouldn’t turn down San Diego, Vegas, Seattle, Los Angeles or somewhere completely random if a deal came up. I quite like the idea of seeing some of the US between the coasts. Boise, Idaho was one of the random choices that came up in the search.
The Skyscanner “Everywhere” tool is probably most useful when you have a base in Europe and you want to do some mini-breaks (e.g., if you’re working in London and want to head over the continental Europe for a long weekend.) (Or, equally if your base is in the US and you just want to get away somewhere for a cheap break.)
The tool shows the main budget airlines like Easy Jet and Ryan Air, as well as some European budget airlines you may not have heard of. It also allows for “all airport” search so you can select, for example, all the London airports as your departure point rather than a specific airport.
The results page shows the flight deals grouped by country which is great if you don’t know the names of secondary airport cities.
If you’re feeling spontaneous, I highly recommend checking out this tool!