What does AI mean for independent travel?  How will AI change the travel industry?  Will it make travel easier and cheaper than ever before, or will super-powerful robots take over the universe and end travel as we know it for eons hence?  Read on to get the good, the bad, and the ugly of AI in travel planning!

Good:  AI can generate suggested itineraries for cities or regions you’re planning to visit, and most giant tech corporations have their own branded AI tools, many of which are accessible to normal peons like us.  If you specify a range of how many days you will be in the area, these tools can even provide you with itineraries for 1 day, 2 days, 3 days and  beyond.  The best part is that you don’t have to do everything the itineraries suggest - you take what you like and leave the rest.  This can be helpful when you’ve planned a trip somewhere that you know to be an exciting place to visit, but you’re feeling overwhelmed with lots of information and lots of choices about how to spend your time.  

At its best, AI is a labor-saving device for this task.  You no longer need to go to the city archives to do research on paper documents or pore over microfilm to get travel advice for remote locations.  You still need to use your own brain to figure out what you want to do from the AI suggestions, though.

Bad:  AI is hot right now, and fads don’t always have staying power.  In the mid-to-late 1990s, people were losing their minds over the then-new technology of virtual reality (VR).  VR also had a resurgence in the late 2000s and 2010s, with promises that we could live, work, and play full-time in virtual worlds.  The technology is still there, and virtual travel is still a fascinating idea, but the VR concept hasn’t really played out in the way that tech moguls might have envisioned it would.  

Ugly:  AI-generated garbage is widely prevalent in top-rated search rankings - and you don’t need Sherlock Holmes-level detective skills to call out this trash when you see it. If you search for videos of the top 10 beaches in Miami, you might just find an AI-generated video about Miami showing beaches with mountains in the background (Note for non-Floridians:  Miami doesn’t have mountains.  Neither does most of the rest of Florida).  Conversely, if you’re curious about attractions in Nazaré, Portugal, such as the lighthouse and surf museum in a cliffside fort on Praia do Norte, then watch out!   That top-rated video about Nazaré with tens of millions of views might show you a lighthouse on a Rhode Island sandbar or another one on the shores of the Great Lakes.  AI-generated “top 10” videos are designed to yield ad revenue, regardless of whether their imagery is geographically accurate or not.  Don’t waste your time with them.

What are some of the ways you’ve used AI for independent travel planning?  Join our community and share your thoughts!