You have now officially lived long enough to search travel options by emoji.
Sure, you may be waiting for other such innovations such as time travel or efficient trips to Mars, but we will take what we can get.
Kayak announced Thursday that it would allow users to search by way of an adorable digital icon, many of you know them as emojis.
They are so ubiquitous that most text conversations now happen by way of adorable avatar and not by, well, text. It even sparked a major motion picture, "The Emoji Movie," that is set to premiere on July 28.
Business Insider spoke with David Solomito, VP of brand marketing at Kayak North America, who explained on the move: "We're always trying to make travel easier for our consumers. Now that emojis are part of mainstream communication more than ever, this made sense."
Kayak explains via its blog post that you can now search travel options by tossing out one of a few emojis. These are tied directly to a given destination.
The first 10 locations are as follows with the adjoining emoji: Tokyo (sushi), New York (Statue of Liberty), O'Hare International Airport - Chicago (bunny), Dublin (clover), Las Vegas (slots), Easter Island (moai), Amsterdam (red light), Los Angeles (movie slate), San Francisco (smartphone) and Toronto (maple leaf).
Typing in the corresponding emoji means being whisked away to its corresponding city or location.
It's an intuitive way to meander around a travel website, and it's only going to get more immersive (or confusing for the emoji illiterate). Kayak is also asking users to vote on what icons should go with what other 15 destinations.
For example, the beer icon is available for Dublin, Milwaukee, Denver or Munich. A baseball could very well belong to the likes of New York, Boston, Chicago or St. Louis. The almighty taco is also up for grabs for Los Angeles, Mexico City, San Diego or Guadalajara.
It's a truly polarizing enterprise and one that is sure to tear apart friends and family as living rooms ignite in the debate over what city deserves the high heel or, gasp, poop emoji.
Solomito continues, explaining that Kayak isn't trying to be cute but rather innovative: "We're doing this not because it's the trendy thing to do, but because emojis have become more engrained in our culture than ever before. It's about utility, and giving our consumers whatever information they need in whatever way they want."
To that end, you can use emojis, (or emoticons if you've been in a cave for five years), on Kayak's desktop, mobile and Facebook Messenger solutions.
Sadly, for Kayak, it's not the first brand to roll out a product based on the emotive character.
[READMORE]READ MORE: Which Emoji Do Travelers Think Represents Your State? [/READMORE]
Monica Poling, writing for TravelPulse Canada, previously explained how CheapFlights offered a similar search function for its flights last July.
Cheapflights' marketing director Samantha Otter explained at the time: "We want to make travel search as intuitive as possible, and delivering this new functionality furthers our brand promise to make search smart and simple. Personalization is the future of travel search, and this is a further step in that direction, allowing our users to communicate with us in a way they're comfortable. It encourages frictionless dialogue in whichever setting and communication medium they prefer."
Long ago, you would have to pick up the (rotary) phone and dial to book a flight. Now you can just tap a single emoji to unfold a world of possibilities.
Now, some of you not yet prepared for this brave new world can relax. Things look fairly straightforward and, thankfully, the classic alphabet will still be heavily utilized by Kayak and other travel websites for the foreseeable future.
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