AI trip planners

Jim, isn't a general online search all that the AI planners do? They just formulate the information into a coherent form.

You're right, but I thought their consolidation would be more efficient than my searching multiple websites, and they would present the results in a more organized fashion than a general web search.
That was true to a limited extent, but based on my admittedly small sample, I got results similar to theirs from just two websites. I guess you could say they saved me a little but not as much as I expected.

Also I thought they'd have some more obscure suggestions, which I didn't get initially. But when I asked for some off-the-beaten-path sites in London, it only provided 5 places, and two of them were not what I'd call them. However, since posting I asked for 20 off-the-beaten-path sites in London and it gave more useful results. (I tried to post them here but they were all jumbled together.) I'd say about 12 of the 20 were genuine "off-path" sights, which isn't bad.

I've done more research since the last post, comparing results of the two AI trip planners.

Vacay was a little more verbose in its descriptions and it provided addresses, which is good. However in Mindtrip's results, if you hover over a sight it pops up a photo, expanded description, and rating; it also provided an adjacent map with the sights located.

Are you aware of this recent thread about the "generic" AI for travel planning?

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tech-tips/seeking-tips-for-using-chatgpt-as-a-part-of-travel-planning

It would be interesting to know how the "travel-specific ai" measure up.

Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen that. Yes, it would be interesting to compare a general AI with those travel-specific ones.

I came across the two I mentioned in an article that compared them. I hadn't realized how many there are now -- a search on "trip planning AI" turns up dozens of them.

I need a meta-AI to tell me which AI to use. :-)

Jim, we'll be holding an online "Tech for Travel" meeting to talk about using AI for trip planning. I haven't posted the announcement yet, but the date will be October 12 at 11am PT, as listed in the "Previews" section of this announcement for our July meeting:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/travel-meetings/sf-east-bay-hosts-travel-talk-july-13-online-everyone-welcome

I'll post the meeting announcement for the October 12 meeting in September. Everyone is welcome to join!

Thanks for the heads-up. We'll be leaving on our trip September 14 if all goes well. However I'll be interested in the session for future reference.