Would you trust a bot to plan your trip?

Free chatbots for travel and itinerary planning

OpenAI released ChatGPT at the end of 2022 and it became the fastest-growing consumer app in history. Since then, Big Tech has been scrambling to keep up and roll out their own chatbots. Their pitch to users is the idea that their chatbots can help plan your future trips. It all seems promising….. at first glance.

Using chatbots to plan travel and itineraries is a logical progression. Existing behind the scenes with flight booking services and virtual support – AI is everywhere. There are, of course, various concerns about using AI to plan travel, one of which is the employment impact. It could replace more than 60 percent of jobs in hospitality-dominated cities by 2035. With travel writers, agents, customer support, and concierges seen at the top of the list.

The central issue may actually relate to limitations with generative AI itself. The bots have shown a tendency to “hallucinate,” or what most of us would call lying. Itinerary planning with chatbots means travellers need to get better at phrasing questions. And watch out for errors, as the bots are liable to make up entire towns — and sound confident at every turn.

If you want to give these free travel planning AI and ChatGPT apps a go, here are the some of the most popular.

Layla (Web)

A tool to build an itinerary for a particular city. It uses the internet’s favourite new AI chat app to plan your trip. Asking only two things: the city and how many days you will be there. It is quite a basic app and does not allow you to filter the results. It’s best to use as a starting point or reference only.

Vacay Chatbot (Web)

Unlike Layla, this app has several uses. Yet, you will need to ask the right kinds of questions for the responses you want. Their ChatGPT-powered chatbot can design a custom trip, provide inspiration on where to go and generate recommendations for hotels, restaurants and local attractions.

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iPlan.AI (Android and iOS)

This app works on phones and provides a full itinerary for one city at a time. It works best for popular tourist cities and not the more obscure or off the beaten track places. Input your intended destination, how many days you will be there and also the free time you have there and you’ll receive an itinerary. You can also add if you are travelling alone, with family, friends and your interests. The itinerary gives you maps, travel times and travel options. It’s a free app but does not currently allow for multi-city planning.

Curiosio (Web)

Curiosio uses its own AI engine to help you plan an easy last-minute road trip. Covering loads of places, though not everywhere, it is quite impressive. You can set options for a round trip, one way, start point, finish point, dates, vehicle, budget and number of travellers. The AI will then give you various plans and routes for your journey. The itinerary includes a map of the route with clickable points of interest. Curiosio is currently one of the best road trip planners.

Don’t rely on any of the travel planning AI apps 100%. Think of them as a template or rough guide to plan your trip. While they are excellent tools, there are limitations to them. Out of date databases and a certain way you need to form your questions are amongst the current issues.

Communicating with a travel expert or doing your own research will always provide a better travel itinerary. 

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