Anyone used Chat GTP to help with a travel itinerary ?

[Platosrevenge]

Wanted to plan a walkable itinerary so we could optimise our 6 day stay in Berlin. Because the place is so big and spread out I was feeling a bit bogged down trying to fit in the places we wanted to see and not end up walking round in circles in the blistering heat. At the time (last week) it was mid 30s. DS 2 suggested using Chat GPT and bloody hell what a revelation !
In the end we had to cancel our trip because I got Covid so never used it but wondered if it is as good as it seemed ? So if I put in a request like ‘a day’s walk round Mitte seeing Cold War historical sights and art galleries with a cafe stop’ it gave me what seemed a really good plan. I actually wrote a list of places we wanted to see over the 6 days and it sorted them into a manageable list ! I’m gobsmacked tbh !

Ive used it as a loose itinerary a couple of times and liked its recommendations.

Yes! I’ve asked it make choices for me before to compare destinations. Really interesting!

Yes, I think it's great for an overview first, then I can drill down and ask specific questions.

For example, I'm thinking of flying into Basel and making my way up to Strasbourg via Colmar and Riquewier, then back down to Basel by a different route. All by public transport!

It is amazing the amount of time it saves doing individual google searches.

I use it too. Couple of times it's been way off though. Stockholm itinerary was just wrong, timings completely off, so do check!

I did! It recommended I have lunch at a pub .. on trip advisor it’s two stars… a dump. I don’t know where it gets it’s ideas from.

Interesting. I guess still do your research !

It's good for the high level stuff like whether there is a train service between A and B, bus numbers, fares, tickets, market days, places of special interest, that kind of thing. I generally just find places to eat when I get there, going by the look of the place!

I also think that too much research can spoil the joy of just discovering some lovely little places. But each to their own.

My observation based on a few uses is that it is way over ambitious for what can be achieved in a day, so I would rely on it to actually plan an itinerary. But for inspiration, it is somewhere to start.

For example I just asked for a London itinerary and it just suggested Tower of London, Tower Bridge and Sky Garden all within 2.5hours. It just doesn’t actually interrogate that anything makes sense, that’s not how it works, it all jhst sounds plausible.

I find Gemini gives better recommendations than ChatGPT.

I've asked it a few times to give me 2 week road trip itineraries for the US and Canada, and then iterated over them to remove steps and suggest alternatives.

Good starting point for more detailed research

I used it for a few days in London, entering specific prompts about tourist sites we wanted to visit and a show we had booked. You just need to double check cafe recs etc before finalising plans - we found a few had actually closed.