Introduction
Creating travel plans using AI sounds like a dream. Simply input a few words and click a few buttons, and your vacation plan is automatically complete. Unfortunately, that is not yet reality because AI travel planning still has a long way to go. While there are hundreds of websites and apps focused on travel planning using AI, I haven’t found a single one that can plan a vacation half as well as I can. While I certainly haven’t tested them all, I did notice enough limitations that I now consider AI a novice research assistant to travel planning that can save me a few hours of time. Below I will outline why to use AI to plan travel, including advantages and disadvantages, as well as some insights on how to use AI (including prompt guidance) to plan your next vacation.
Why Use AI to Plan Travel?
Using AI for travel planning has major advantages, with the most notable being that it’s a time saver. While it can’t do all of the work for you, it can certainly help jump-start your research so that you have a short list of hotels, attractions, activities, and restaurants to review as you create your trip itinerary.
Testing Specific AI Tools: Advantages and Disadvantages
I tested 6 AI tools for travel planning. While some of them had major similarities and differences, there was a lot of overlap. Here are the major advantages and disadvantages I noticed. Note: all of them don’t share the same pros and cons.
Major Advantages
- Speed of information
- Many have a free usage option
- Most had user-friendly platforms
- A lot of them used crowdsourced recommendations
- Several had downloadable itineraries or plans with sharing options
- On a couple of the tools, I saw a “regenerate” option. This allows you to get different answers if you don’t like what you see.
Major Disadvantages
- Zig-zagging across the city for every activity, resulting in inefficient use of travel time with unnecessary time in transit.
- Suggesting the same restaurants on multiple days (of a 3-day trip). I happen to know there are many more (and better) options in that city.
- Providing attractions that are closed for repairs or that have changed drastically.
- Selecting restaurants that don’t have the food options I requested.
- Providing activities with major inaccuracies – for example, suggesting I go swimming at a lake where I know swimming is not allowed (and frankly, would be disgusting).
- Data limitations, including the inability to choose travel destinations of interest, as many cities and even entire countries aren’t yet supported.
- Lack of questions/prompts to an itinerary truly custom to my needs.
- Some only work on the web, and others are only available via an app.
- Data limitations.
- Major inaccuracies in activity and transportation costs.
Tips for using AI for Travel Planning
While there are disadvantages to using AI for travel planning, it certainly can save you time if you know how to use it. AI can help you plan your trip more efficiently, even with its limitations. Knowing what you want out of your vacation is probably the most important piece, as the more specific you can get, the better your results can be. Below are some ways to get started with travel planning using AI.
Step 1: Find an AI travel planning tool that includes your destination
First, do a quick Google search to find AI travel planners that include your destination. Try typing in: Best AI trip planning for [enter location]. If you can find travel AI websites and apps that include your destination, you might be able to quickly get some ideas for your next vacation, especially if they crowdsource itineraries.
Answer as many prompts as the tools provide to get the best information. Save the trip itineraries recommended. You can use a travel planning template to organize all of the information later. Note: some travel planning AI lets you book directly on their sites. I haven’t done this, so I can’t vouch for it. If you do this, let me know your thoughts on it!
Step 2: Use ChatGPT
Next, use an AI tool like ChatGPT to supplement the trip planning AI. ChatGPT is great because you can type in exactly what you want, as opposed to being limited to answering questions provided by the AI trip planning tool. They may also use different data sources.
Travel Planning Prompt Tips for ChatGPT
Basic Starting Prompt Details
Tell ChatGPT its role, for example that it is a travel planner who wants to create a trip itinerary based on your travel details. Examples of details you’ll want to include are time of year you are going, how long you are staying, and who you are traveling with. Be sure to tell it to provide options that match with your co-travelers’ needs.
Basic Starting Prompt Example:
You are a travel planner who is creating an itinerary for a family traveling to Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida. They are going for seven days in June, and they want to go to each theme park one time. The family would like their itinerary to include restaurants, attractions, events, and hotel accommodations that are kid-friendly. They do not want anything on their itinerary that is adults-only. Provide an itinerary with these criteria in mind.
A note on limitations: Using this prompt in ChatGPT gave me great restaurant options and attractions I would be interested in researching further. Due to the data it was trained on, it had some outdated information. For example, it suggested FastPass+, which no longer exists. It also suggested Magic Kingdom for two different days of the trip, even though the prompt specified going to each park only one time. All of the suggestions would go into my travel planning template to research further.
Here is additional information to consider adding to your prompt to try to yield better results.
Travel Radius
In your prompts, state that you want to keep all activities for each day within a certain mile radius. This can help it provide suggestions that are near each other, so you aren’t wasting too much time driving.
Restaurant Recommendations
In your prompts, tell ChatGPT to suggest restaurants that have specific requirements, such as the types of food and atmosphere you prefer.
Activities and Attractions
Give ChatGPT direction on activities you want to do. For example, if you want to be outdoors, be sure to ask it to provide options for outdoor activities.
You don’t need all of this information in one prompt, though you can do that if preferred. ChatGPT will use the entire chat to continue providing information, and you can edit the prompts or click regenerate if you don’t like the information provided.
A Complete Prompt Example
You are a travel planner who is creating an itinerary for a family traveling with their dog to Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida. They are going for seven days in June, and they want to go to each theme park one time. The family would like their itinerary to include restaurants, attractions, events, and hotel accommodations that are kid-friendly. They do not want anything on their itinerary that is adults-only. For the days they do not go to a theme park, provide outdoor activities and attractions within a 15-mile radius of Magic Kingdom. For days they do not go to theme parks, provide restaurant options that are dog-friendly. Provide an itinerary with these criteria in mind.
ChatGPT did a good job with this itinerary. It provided restaurants and attractions that are highly rated. It also provided a resort option and activities outside of Disney World that one might enjoy. On the flipside, it did provide an activity 20 miles from Magic Kingdom, so it was a miss on that request. It also didn’t provide a lot of detail (not that the prompt asked for that). A next step with ChatGPT could be zeroing in on each day to get more detailed information OR adding your information into your travel planning template to begin your research outside of AI.
Step 3: Organize
Make sure you have all of the information provided in one place to make it easier. With many AI travel planning tools, you can export, share, or save as PDFs. With ChatGPT, you can copy to clipboard. You can even ask it to put all of the information in a template, or if preferred, a table. Alternatively, you can use a travel planning template and organize the information in your preferred way.
From here on out, you’ll likely not need to use AI tools to complete your travel planning, though you will use the information it provided you.
Step 4: Research and Verify
The AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on. Verify all of its suggestions that you find interesting. For example, if you requested restaurants with vegan food, review the menu. Also check the business hours for any places of interest, because they could have changed. It was really important to factor in business hours during a recent trip I took to Saint Thomas because so many places opened a little later and closed much earlier than places at home. Some of the attractions were also completely closed on certain days of the week. ChatGPT didn’t factor this in at all.
Step 5: Expand Your Options
I find it best to use AI as a starting point. Once it recommends types of activities you like, do a quick search of those same activities to see other companies – especially when suggestions come from the travel planning AI tools. Save time by limiting your search to top-rated options that are near your hotel. Always look at the most recent reviews too. For example, it suggested a place to rent jet skis for a recent trip, so I did a quick search for that and found 7 other companies within a 5-mile radius of my resort.
Also, you’ll probably want to look at a local event calendar for additional activities during your vacation. Note dates, times, and locations in your travel planning template, so you can factor those in as you plan each day.
Step 6: Plan Each Day
It’s time to complete your itinerary for each day! First, fill in any events that you must do based on dates and times those are available. Then use location to help you fill in the details around those for a more efficient trip, so you can spend less time in transit and more time enjoying yourself. Factor in the potential for weather issues by front-loading your travel plans with activities that require the best weather. Then if needed, you can swap the itinerary for a day full of outdoor activities for a day with indoor activities if the weather is bad on the first day(s) of your trip.
Conclusion
While there are a few limitations to travel planning with AI, consider your AI resources to be travel research assistants simply helping you get a few steps ahead. Save yourself some time and use them alongside your typical planning methods to short-list dining, accommodations, and activities. Be sure to verify anything provided using AI, as it will have mistakes. Happy planning!