Planning travel can be a daunting maze. Guidebooks, by their nature, send all readers to the same destinations. And web searches can yield an unhelpful mess of content.<\/p>\n
Yet some tech-savvy travelers are finding success using artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard to inspire and\u00a0plan their vacations, treating these services like free, on-demand travel agents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked the idea of ChatGPT because it gives you a very clear list,\u201d says Alpa Patel, an avid traveler based out of New York City.<\/p>\n
Patel has been planning a family trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, for the summer. After getting frustrated with the cookie-cutter travel websites served up by Google \u201cI started with the best places to stay and it gave me a list of neighborhoods, along with the best hotels. I actually picked my hotel through that list,\u201d Patel says.<\/p>\n See<\/strong>: What is ChatGPT? Well, you can ask it yourself.<\/p>\n Although Patel enjoyed the simplicity of these responses, she quickly found another reason why AI chatbots like ChatGPT can be useful for travel planning: customization.<\/p>\n Google was giving her endless recommendations for the Scottish Highlands, but Patel\u2019s younger son gets carsick, so she didn\u2019t think it would be feasible for him to spend hours in a car to get there. She found ChatGPT was able to give her reasonable alternatives.<\/p>\n \u201cI very specifically asked, \u2018What are good day trips when you have a child who suffers from car sickness?\u2019 It came up with some ideas that you could go to by train,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Steven Kreimendahl, co-founder of the blog Travel to Blank, was planning a trip to Japan in the spring with his wife and mother-in-law and used ChatGPT\u2019s personalized recommendations to consider the group\u2019s different travel styles.<\/p>\n \u201cMy wife and I love traveling all day, while my mother-in-law prefers a slower form of travel,\u201d Kreimendahl says. \u201cI gave ChatGPT as much detail as possible and let it run with that.\u201d<\/p>\n This approach differs from traditional ways of researching travel ideas. It requires some creativity on the traveler\u2019s part to identify their niche interests, such as 1950s architecture in New York City or the best tonkotsu ramen in the Ginza neighborhood of Tokyo. Rather than simply reading a list of ideas, trip planning with AI chatbots involves feeding it the preferences that matter to you.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more information it has, the better response you\u2019ll get,\u201d Kreimendahl says.<\/p>\n Plus<\/strong>: Is ChatGPT the future of investment advice?<\/p>\n Unlike real travel experts, artificial intelligence models can\u2019t get their feelings hurt. That means it\u2019s OK to shoot down ideas you don\u2019t like \u2014 in fact, it\u2019s encouraged.<\/p>\n While web search results essentially reset with every new query, the language models powering chatbots can carry on long conversations, remembering and responding to questions and feedback throughout.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes it\u2019s really broad, like, \u2018just relax for the day,\u2019\u201d Kreimendahl says, citing ChatGPT\u2019s recommendation for a multiday itinerary. \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to dig in deeper and ask for more specific requests.\u201d<\/p>\n And while these models are great at generating ideas and answering simple questions, nothing they say should be taken as, well, true. ChatGPT, for example, is based on historical information up to 2021, so you can\u2019t expect it to provide the latest details, which you might find with a search engine like Google. The chatbot may recommend a restaurant that closed during the pandemic or a train line that isn\u2019t running on your travel dates.<\/p>\n For example, Kreimendahl was\u00a0visiting Japan\u00a0at the end of cherry blossom season, and ChatGPT didn\u2019t know when or where these blooms were actually happening.<\/p>\n Also see: <\/strong>Want to book a trip? Lots of luck using your travel rewards.<\/p>\n AI chatbots like ChatGPT might seem like technological wizards, but they\u2019re still quite limited in what they can do. Don\u2019t expect them to know current flight prices to Dubai or book a reservation at a restaurant it recommends.<\/p>\n
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\n she had an idea: Why not ask ChatGPT for some advice?<\/p>\nSet your preferences<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Push back and verify<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Get inspired<\/strong><\/h2>\n