Using AI for Travel Planning? Read This Before You Book Anything

Let’s get this out of the way up front: we love AI.

At ABC Trips, we use AI constantly. We use it to brainstorm routes, populate our interactive maps and itineraries, surface obscure logistics, summarize policies, and sanity-check ideas at speed. We’d be foolish not to. AI is fast, tireless, and shockingly good at synthesizing massive amounts of information.

But here’s the part most people miss: AI is not a travel expert. It’s a language model with confidence issues. And as I've outlined before, the capabilities of AI and DIY travel platforms are growing quickly, but we're still not there.

So when travelers treat AI like an infallible digital concierge—rather than a very clever intern—it starts making mistakes. Not small ones, either. We’re talking missed connections, closed restaurants, unrealistic drive times, and itineraries that look great on paper but fall apart the moment you land.

The irony? The more “impressive” an AI-generated itinerary looks, the more likely it is to be quietly wrong.

We’re not anti-AI. We’re anti-delusion.

So if you’re using AI to plan your travel (and odds are you are), here are the four most common mistakes we see bots make—and how to avoid them without throwing the tech baby out with the bathwater.

When AI Loses the Plot on Geography

AI is very good with words. It is very bad with physical reality.

Ask an AI chatbot whether two places are “close,” and it will confidently tell you yes—based on vibes, blog posts, or how often those two names appear in the same paragraph online. What it will not reliably do is understand elevation, traffic patterns, road quality, ferry schedules, or the fact that lakes are not, in fact, drivable.

This is one of the most dangerous failure points in AI travel planning.

We’ve seen itineraries that look beautifully balanced until you map them out and realize you’re changing hotels every night or driving four hours for a 30-minute experience. AI doesn’t feel travel fatigue. It doesn’t understand jet lag. It doesn’t grasp that “just outside the city” can mean wildly different things in Tokyo versus Tuscany.

Why? Because most chatbots aren’t reasoning spatially. They’re pulling language patterns from content that already exists online—often written by people who didn’t measure distances carefully either.

The ABC Trips reality check

Every itinerary we build gets cross-referenced against real-world mapping tools and our own lived experience. We know when a “quick transfer” is actually a soul-sucking slog. AI doesn’t. It just smiles and keeps typing.

How to work around it

• Verify every distance using Google Maps or Apple Maps
• Sanity-check driving days, transfer days, and arrival/departure timing
• Be suspicious of phrases like “nearby,” “short drive,” and “easily accessible”

If geography matters (and in travel, it always does), AI is your assistant—not your navigator.

The Problem With AI’s Memory: It’s Stuck in the Past

AI doesn’t know what changed last month unless that change was widely documented—and even then, it may still miss it.

Restaurants close. Hotels rebrand. Ferries change schedules. Guides retire. Entire experiences disappear quietly without making enough online noise to update the model’s assumptions.

AI is trained on what has been written, not what is currently true.

That means it can confidently recommend a restaurant that no longer exists, a hotel that’s mid-renovation, or a tour operator that stopped running trips two seasons ago. And it will do so with zero hesitation.

From the outside, the response looks authoritative. Inside, it’s stale.

The ABC Trips approach

We cross-check everything against primary sources and partner communications. We speak directly with hotels, guides, cruise lines, and local operators. We track seasonal changes, soft openings, management shifts, and reputation drift—things AI doesn’t reliably see until long after the fact.

How to work around it

• Always check the official website of any hotel, restaurant, or attraction
• Look for recent reviews—but read them critically
• When something feels too perfect, verify it manually

AI can summarize the internet. It cannot tell you whether the internet is out of date.

AI Has No Sense of Vibe (And That’s a Big Deal)

This is where things get subtle—and where human planners still have a massive edge.

AI does not understand vibe. It doesn’t know what “romantic but not stuffy” actually feels like. It can’t tell whether a restaurant is technically family-friendly but emotionally miserable for parents. It doesn’t understand the difference between “lively” and “loud,” or “authentic” and “performative.”

It guesses—based on language patterns.

When you ask for a “family-friendly” restaurant, AI may surface places that technically allow children but would make you want to apologize to every table within earshot. When you ask for “local favorites,” it often returns places that were local favorites five years ago, before Instagram found them and tour buses followed.

Why this happens

AI lacks first-hand experience. It hasn’t eaten there. It hasn’t waited in line. It hasn’t tried to put a jet-lagged toddler to bed above a nightclub.

It’s interpreting labels, not realities.

The ABC Trips difference

We plan travel based on how places actually feel—not how they’re described online. We know which hotels look chic but feel cold, which “hidden gems” are no longer hidden, and which experiences are worth building an entire trip around.

This is especially critical for:

• Family travel
• Honeymoons and milestone trips
• Food-focused itineraries
• Cultural immersion experiences

How to work around it

• Be hyper-specific in your prompts
• Describe who you are, not just what you want
• Ask follow-up questions when recommendations feel off

Better yet, run AI suggestions past someone who’s actually been there.

Why AI Keeps Sending You to the Same Overcrowded Places

This one isn’t exactly a bug—it’s a feature you have to manage.

AI models are trained on massive amounts of publicly available content. That means they disproportionately surface places that are already well-documented, heavily photographed, and endlessly written about.

Translation: if it’s famous on Instagram, AI loves it.

If you ask for the “best” anything, you’re likely to get the same list that’s been circulating for years. That doesn’t mean those places are bad—but it does mean they’re often crowded, expensive, and stripped of the magic that made them special in the first place.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: once something truly special is widely shared online, it’s already on borrowed time.

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The ABC Trips philosophy

We focus on experiences that aren’t yet fully digested by the internet. That might mean lesser-known regions, shoulder seasons, alternative routes, or cultural experiences that don’t photograph well but feel unforgettable in person.

AI can’t reliably find those—because they haven’t been written about enough.

How to work around it

• Ask for alternatives, not highlights
• Use phrases like “low-key,” “under the radar,” or “non-Instagram”
• Avoid prompts that include “top,” “best,” or “must-see” without qualifiers

AI reflects the crowd. Great travel often avoids it.

How We Actually Use AI at ABC Trips

Here’s the nuance that gets lost in the “AI vs. human” debate: this isn’t an either/or situation.

We use AI extensively—but always within a human-led framework.

AI helps us:

• Brainstorm route variations
• Pressure-test schedules
• Aggregate data to populate maps, itineraries, and other content on our website
• Identify logistical constraints
• Summarize complex policies
• Speed up research that would otherwise take hours

But every recommendation is filtered through:

• First-hand travel experience
• Partner intel from hotels, guides, and cruise lines
• A deep understanding of how different travelers actually move through the world

AI gives us speed. Humans provide judgment.

That hybrid approach is where modern travel planning actually shines.

If You Want Better AI Results, Let AI Help You Ask Better Questions

One surprisingly effective tactic? Ask the AI to write the prompt for you.

Instead of jumping straight to “Plan my trip,” try asking the chatbot to first interview you. Let it identify what information it needs before generating an itinerary. This often leads to better structure and fewer obvious errors.

Even then, treat the result as a draft—not a final plan.

AI is excellent at generating options. It is not great at choosing between them.

In Other Words

AI has changed travel planning forever—and mostly for the better. But it hasn’t replaced experience, taste, or judgment. It can’t tell you how a place feels, whether it’s past its prime, or if a route looks easy but feels exhausting.

Used wisely, AI is a powerful tool. Used blindly, it’s a confident liar with great formatting.

At ABC Trips, we embrace the tech, cross-check everything, and add the human layer that turns a decent itinerary into an unforgettable one. Because the best trips don’t come from scraping the internet—they come from knowing when to look beyond it.

And that’s something no bot has figured out yet.