AI Travel Planners Tested: Which Ones Give Useful Itineraries?

AI can put a travel itinerary together in seconds, complete with what to see, restaurant suggestions, and a day-by-day schedule. Sounds like a dream, right? 

That’s until you realize it’s squeezed three attractions on opposite sides of the city into one afternoon, recommended a restaurant that’s permanently closed, or completely ignored your budget.

Many AI travel planners promise to take the hassle out of organizing vacations, but just how useful are they now? 

We took a closer look at four popular AI travel planners, so you can decide whether to use one for your next trip.

We Gave All Four AI Travel Planners the Same Challenge

For this test, we gave ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Mindtrip, and Wanderlog the same travel-planning challenge. The goal was simple: create an itinerary we’d actually want to follow. Not one that just looks good on paper.

Here’s the prompt: My husband and I want to spend four days in San Francisco. We have $1,200 to cover food, activities, and local transport, and want a good mix of great food, famous sights, and a few hidden gems. We won’t have a car and would prefer not to spend our vacation rushing from one attraction to the next. What itinerary would you recommend?

Each AI planner got the same instructions, and we assessed the results based on four things:

1. Personalization: How well each tool understood the kind of trip we wanted. 
2. Geography: Whether the attractions were close enough together to make sense. 
3. Budget: How well it could stay within the budget we gave it. 
4. Editing: We played around with the itineraries to see how much effort it took to change the things we didn’t like. 

We also threw in a last-minute challenge to see how flexible each planner was. One of our travelers had a knee injury, which meant less walking and more accessible activities. 

We weren’t necessarily looking for a tool with the longest list of recommendations, either. We wanted a tool that didn’t require us to spend more time researching everything ourselves. 

Here’s what we found:

ChatGPT: Flexible with a Few Blind Spots

ChatGPT’s biggest pro is that you can have a proper back-and-forth conversation and keep refining the results until they suit your travel style exactly.

For our San Francisco trip, ChatGPT built a daily schedule around the budget, suggested restaurants and attractions, and estimated how much each activity might cost. 

During our chat, it suggested Alcatraz, but that was too touristy, so we asked for some other options. 

As OpenAI’s travel planning examples show, ChatGPT is great at helping travelers explore destinations and narrow down options based on personal interests, and it did. 

The catch is that while this platform’s itineraries can be convincing, they aren’t always accurate. It ended up showing us a few outdated prices and travel times that were a bit too optimistic. We also had to double-check whether all of the costs it gave us were accurate and within our budget. 

At the end of the day, you’re left with a very lengthy chat to work through. Extra prompts are also needed to end up with an itinerary you can actually take with you and follow. 

Our take: ChatGPT is useful for brainstorming and personalizing a trip, especially if you enjoy tweaking the details as you go. It’s best to double-check everything before you commit to its recommendations and start packing your bags, though. 

Google Gemini: Better at Mapping Out the Details

There’s no real point in having a great itinerary if you spend half your vacation getting from one place to the next. This is where Google Gemini stands out, thanks to its connection to Google Maps and information from Google Flights and Hotels.

After our chat, Google Gemini grouped attractions into sensible neighborhoods, instead of sending us all over the city. It also gave us good recommendations for public transport, estimated travel times, and restaurants to eat at along the way.

When testing how well it could adapt the itinerary when asked for fewer walking-intensive activities, it delivered some good results. And it didn’t just swap out outdoor activities for museum visits. 

However, we had to check whether the suggested alternatives were easy to fit into the original day’s route. This is especially true in a place like San Francisco, where the hills can make even a short distance feel longer. 

Our take: Gemini’s connection to Google’s travel tools makes it a great option if you’re worried about logistics or you’re unfamiliar with a city. When it came to organizing activities around different neighborhoods and reducing unnecessary travel time and costs, it was super helpful. Just note that Gemini doesn’t provide live traffic updates, so leave some wiggle room on busy days.

Mindtrip: The Visual Travel Planner

Mindtrip is specifically designed for travel planning. So, instead of it giving you a long list of suggestions in a chat like Gemini or ChatGPT, it’s completely focused on bringing your itinerary, maps, and recommendations together in one place.

Once we answered a few questions to set up our agent and submitted our prompt, Mindtrip gave us a complete view of how each day would play out, with attractions and restaurants displayed alongside an interactive map. We could even make accommodation and restaurant reservations directly from the platform. 

And with everything laid out in one view, it was easy to check if any of the days were too packed. 

Making changes wasn’t difficult, either. We could move activities around, look into alternative recommendations, and adjust our plans without having to generate a brand new itinerary. 

Plus, it gave us a good balance of some of the more popular attractions and the lesser-known ones. Same with the restaurants it listed. 

The downside is that having everything laid out nicely doesn’t necessarily mean every suggestion is a good one. We still needed to check some of the recommendations against our budget and travel preferences.

Our take: Mindtrip is ideal if you’d enjoy a more visual layout of your travel plans. It’s also excellent for making changes on the fly.

Wanderlog: One for the Organizers

Wanderlog takes a slightly different approach to travel planning. You can definitely use it to come up with ideas for your trip, but where it really shines is keeping everything organized once you finalize your itinerary.

For our test trip, Wanderlog arranged our activities into a daily schedule and displayed all the attractions on a map. We would’ve really loved to use its route optimization feature, but this is only available with a Pro plan. 

When it came to the actual recommendations, though, we found Wanderlog didn’t provide as many interesting options, which meant we had to research those ourselves or use a second tool. 

The budget feature is also really handy. It meant we could see how all of our plans were fitting in with our $1,200 budget, and could make adjustments if we needed to. 

Our take: Wanderlog is a great interactive travel planner and is ideal if you want to have your itinerary, expenses, and travel details in one place. You will need a subscription if you want the extra features, though. 

A Few Things AI Still Gets Wrong About Travel

AI travel planners can save you hours of research, but when it comes to the smaller details, they might not be as reliable as we’d like. Even the best-looking itinerary could throw you a few curveballs.

It seems that outdated information is one of the biggest issues. Attractions might have different opening times depending on the season, restaurants could’ve closed, and admission fees may have changed. 

AI also doesn’t always factor in booking requirements or how long it actually takes to get between places, especially if you’re planning to use public transport.

Another thing we noticed is that AI doesn’t take time in between stops into account. It might allow an hour for a major attraction, without considering queues, grabbing something to eat, or simply wanting to stay a bit longer. So, this is something to consider when building your prompts and refining your days. 

Then there’s the issue of having to stay connected while traveling in order to access all your planning. Before you board a cruise from Tampa, travel to the Netherlands, or visit the south of France, download your maps and translation packs. Connectivity at sea, abroad, and in ports can be patchy. 

The bottom line? AI is a great starting point, but a little extra planning and fact-checking will probably still be needed. 

So, Should You Use AI to Plan Your Next Trip?

After putting these four AI travel planners to the test, one thing is clear: they’re not all good at the same things.

ChatGPT was handy for tweaking ideas, Gemini did a better job with routes and logistics, Mindtrip made it easier to visualize our plans, and Wanderlog was great at keeping the trip organized.

AI is definitely worth trying if you’re planning a trip and don’t have hours to spend on research, and you may find that using more than one platform is the best option. Just don’t let AI have the final say. For now, anyway. 

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