You Need To Try AI For Travel Planning!

Letting the internet do the work for you (pic: Allerin.com)

I cannot believe I'm beseeching you to try AI (Artificial Intelligence), but as I am researching its role in travel planning for a website I'm working on (stay tuned!), I had to do my due diligence. While I was aware that more than three-quarters of travelers say AI improves trip planning, I was not expecting to fall into that majority. But fell, I did; and I'm guessing you will, too, if you give it a try. It's easy and if I can do it, anyone can. (Really!)

The Prompt

For those of you who are new to AI, you simply type a question or query (or prompt) into an AI platform, and tons of data get scrubbed in order for a response to magically appear. The more specific the prompt, the more specific and useful your response will be.

While you can certainly ask a generic AI platform (like Chat GPT) for help with travel planning, I suggest using a travel-specific AI platform since its knowledge-base is focused on travel, and the results are likely to be both more reliable and in a format more to your liking. As you can see below, I had typos and poor grammar in my query (top, left of the picture), and the output was excellent. If I had added more specifics, like "include a stay in a castle," or "include restaurants where I can get great oysters," that would have helped make the resulting itinerary even better.

Flawed prompt and some output from mindtrap.ai

The Output

Each AI platform will format its output differently, and I would suggest you immediately copy the output and save it someplace else even before trying to save it and format it on the AI platform (it can be glitchy). And, while the output will likely be imperfect, it should give you an EXCELLENT base from which to refine your trip details, and it will absolutely save you lots of time, stress, and decision paralysis.

The Caveat

There's always a caveat, right? Well this one holds for all AI outputs: you need to check the results you get! AI is known for making things up, and it is extremely possible (probable, even) that some of the details may not be quite right (ie days that things are open, hotel information, etc.).

Which AI Platforms To Try?

Here are the three AI platforms I have been impressed with. In order to to decide for yourself, I recommend writing up your prompt and plugging it into all 3 to see which you like most. Plus, it's super interesting to see how the output differs or is consistent across the platforms. If you only want to try one, this list is in order of my personal preference:

• Mindtrip.ai

• Canva Trip Planner AI

• Mylz 

There you have it. Give AI a try even if you are just at the very beginning stages of figuring out where you want to go and what you want to do there -- I promise you'll be impressed. And remember, even if you don't know what you want to see, you can ask what the things are to do in a certain place for people who like xyz. This is really an example of technology being used for good.