The story behind PreRouted

It started with a monster spreadsheet

After leaving university, I wanted to travel as much as possible but had little money to do so. I would spend days searching hundreds of routes, recording dates and prices in an enormous spreadsheet, then trying to work out how the cheapest flights could join into one continuous trip.

The first time I did it, I travelled through Barcelona, Split, Dubrovnik, Montenegro and Milan for about £190 in total transport costs: less than the direct return flight to Split that I had originally planned. Later, after saving up £5,000 for a gap year, I stretched that budget across five months and nine countries in Southeast Asia. Three of those countries were bonuses, added because cheap flights through them joined up into a better route.

I wanted the journey to be part of the holiday

I hate airport layovers. Waiting in a terminal for hours has never felt like a good use of holiday time. Instead, I look for a place with cheap direct flights both in and out, with enough time between the flights to leave the airport and actually experience the place. I only use the route when the combined flights cost less than flying direct, and I get new cities, food and cultures to experience too. It’s a simple win-win, but finding the right combinations is not simple.

Planning one of these trips manually would take me four days and more than 200 individual flight searches, and even then I don’t think I had the “best” route, just a workable “good enough” one.

Turning four days of searching into a few seconds

Building a system to automate that process is how PreRouted was born.

It started as a small test script to prove the idea was possible. About five years and three generations of algorithms later, the system behind this website can search millions of possible journeys and return useful routes in under 30 seconds, while keeping the original rule that matters: the routes should cost less than flying direct.

Because PreRouted already has the flight data needed for that search, it can also do the simpler deal-finding you see elsewhere: spotting unusually cheap direct flights and especially large discounts. That is why the site shows both direct bargains and multi-destination trips.

I still use stopovers myself

In June 2026 I needed to reach a close friend’s wedding in India while flight prices were climbing fast. The one-way flight I had been watching rose from £540 to £1,300 in ten days. I also wanted to visit family in Japan later in the year, so I joined the two trips together and used stopovers to build the route below. Every leg was direct and on a good airline, and the whole journey cost under £1,300.

1. London
2. India
3. Singapore
4. Japan
5. Korea
6. London

Leaving for India a few days earlier found a bargain fare. Adding three days in Singapore saved £270 on the India-to-Japan leg, and two nights in Korea saved £450 on the journey home. Booking the India return and a separate Japan trip would have cost around £4,000. Realistically, that would have meant skipping the family visit. Instead, I reached the wedding, saw my family and had two extra adventures.

Why share it?

I first built PreRouted because I wanted a faster way to find these routes without spending four days and a lot of brainpower in front of a spreadsheet. I also wanted to make the process simple enough for other travellers to use too, as I realised this way of travelling was uncommon because the routes were difficult to find, not because people wouldn’t enjoy or use them.

I hope PreRouted helps you discover some of the weird and wonderful corners of our planet, experience new cultures, and spend more time travelling without needing a bigger budget to do so! I know it has for me.

Wishing you all happy travels,
Ocean
Connect with me on LinkedIn