Meet Eugene at Fodors Travel... a new way of getting travel information (or not....)

Baby Boomer. Never ever going to ask a computer for any kind of travel intel. Prefer speaking, emailing or texting friends for recommendations. That or reading RS Guidebooks at the library or bookstore.

Mostly love exploring and discovering places on my own. Over 50 years plus of traveling I’ve enjoyed: A home owner selling and serving juice from her front door in Havana, throughly appreciated the Blue Owl Cafe in London’s Crouch End neighborhood, discovering the Rodin Museum in in Paris in the 90’s, devouring the stellar pumpkin soup at The Dove pub in London’s Hammersmith neighborhood, the Indian Fry Bread in New Mexico, the pub cat at the Seven Stars pub by the Royal Courts of London, a Cheesesteak at John’s in Philadelphia, having a cocktail at the Ticket Office in London’s St Pancras, hiking the Gap of Dunloe in Ireland, the coffee from SloRoasted served at Cecilia’s Cafe in Los Osos CA, the French Onion soup I had in a small cafe in Amsterdam, the cleanliness of Havana and San Antonio Cuba, and on and on and on.

AI won’t ever replace a human’s reccomendation.

I just asked it a question. I said i had a 2 hour transfer between trains at Crewe and where could I eat. The answer was a restaurant on Liverpool's waterfront - the round trip journey would take at least 2 hours even without eating!! Utter nonsense, but highlights the basic flaw in all of these Ai gimmicks - they can't say sorry, I don't know. Added to which Fodors is one of several guide publishers which really don't know their subject countries - so where will their AI get knowledge from?

I am 100% with Claudia on this one. Also, why do you need AI for any of those questions? If you want to know if a restaurant is "worth the splurge" can't you just go and read the reviews and decide for yourself? How hard is it to open a guidebook for five minutes and read about different areas of Paris to decide where you want to stay? And finally... critical thinking and reading comprehension are important skills... I would rather try to maintain mine.

And this Eugene is somehow superior to Chat GPT, Claude, Grok or any of the other rapidly expanding army of alternatives?

Its so good you dont need to spend just as much time double checking all the "facts" it spits out?

Since it says it's only taking info from the Fodors writers it is limited. It would be like only planning a trip using the RS sources; you could do it, but your planning would be limited. I asked the same question using Eugene and Google's AI and Google was far superior and comprehensive. Part of my question was that I was planning a 1 week trip and Google told me I'd be spending my whole trip driving and not seeing anything!

For the record, I love AI for the preliminary planning of a trip. It's a massive timesaver that provides me with broad information and then links-including to this Forum so I can research in further detail.

@Claudia, I know you don't like AI, but it likes you. I asked if you could be trusted with advice about London: ;)

Yes, you can absolutely trust Claudia from the Rick Steves forum. She
is one of the most prolific, respected, and highly active contributors
on the Rick Steves England Travel Forum.She is a deeply seasoned
traveler who has visited London dozens of times over several decades.
Her advice is highly valued across the community for several key
reasons

Proof AI isn’t total BS.

Allan thanks for sharing AI’s complimentary remarks but honestly I find it creepy and further proof of Big Brothers existence. Sigh

Cat VH…your reply about trying to maintain your critical thinking skills made me think of this article I just read today. Having the potential for being creepy lies alongside a long list of things I worry about with AI in the future.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/learning-assessment/2026/07/08/brown-professor-suspects-most-his-class-used-ai-cheat

Last summer I was looking for information on how best to get rid of a massive attack of box elder beetles. AI told me (not making this up): “paint your neighbor’s house jet black to deter swarms forming.”

Never mind that the house is on 3 acres in the country and there ARE NO NEIGHBORS. Which the AI should have known because I was running it on my laptop, with location services turned on. 😂 Even without that detail - what neighbor is gonna let me sneak up and paint their house black? 😜

I assume that Fodor’s is hoping for user feedback to help train their godforsaken killer robo… I mean, AI tool… to get better over time. In the meantime, it sounds like just more junky, janky, not-much-better-than-beta crud to wade through.

I’m not a boomer, but I’m with Claudia. Give me input from a real human, with real human insights that I vibe with, every time.

Also - if this AI nonsense ever does get good enough to give a real, valuable opinion, then it will probably have become sufficiently advanced (and perhaps sentient) to wipe us all out. Which is obviously a bigger worry at that point.

Baby Boomer. Never ever going to ask a computer for any kind of travel intel.

Also Baby Boomer. I'll use whatever tools are available to me, including AI. But I'll acknowledge that recommendations from actual humans still hold sway for me. It's just that AI can serve as a supercharged search engine, which can hasten my finding the right humans. :o)

Allan - AI also likes you too as it does all of the established Rick Steve's posters!

Very good article, Mustlovedogs, thanks for sharing it!

One final thing that I'll add is that I really do genuinely enjoy planning trips. It's one of my favourite activities and how I choose to spend a lot of my free time. It's also really satisfying to do things like figure out a complicated itinerary to fit in all the things you want to see. These are more reasons I would not outsource planning to AI.

Cat VH, I wish I could share the post the my husband showed me yesterday! It said “my wife can’t decide what to have for dinner, but she can plan a trip anywhere in the world in less than two hours” :)

Of course it was right about the time when he was asking me what we were going to do for dinner and I had my travel legal pads on my lap and pen in hand!

I've just checked Google's AI summarisation of me. I did have a chuckle when I read this:

"...He frequently provides granular, hyper-local recommendations for London and the South of England..."

Granular? Now that's a new term for me!

My Google Ai summary is me.crewe is a highly active and helpful community member. They frequently provide detailed, practical travel advice for navigating the UK. It then offers as evidence my comparison of how Guy Fawkes and Halloween events have become entwined - which is nothing to do with navigation or travel! It also claims that I am in Sandbach, so can't even take a hint.....