I tried Tripadvisor's free AI tool to plan trips to Maui and Montreal. It was useful in some ways, but I won't stop doing my own trip research.
- I tried using Tripadvisor's free AI planning tool to plan a couple of trips.
- It made some solid recommendations but also left out others and lacked useful context.
Before I got a 9-to-5, I spent a good chunk of my 20s freelancing while traveling out of a van or working on farms abroad so that I could stay for free weeks at a time.
These days, my travel time is truncated and, naturally, more precious. If I'm taking a week off work, I want to make the absolute most of my time — and that's where good planning comes in.
When my editor suggested having someone try out Tripadvisor's free AI trip builder, I immediately volunteered — yes, because I'm a team player, but also because I thought I might personally find it useful.
I used it to plan two potential trips: one to Maui, a place I'm very familiar with and recently visited, and one to Montreal, a place I've never been to but am planning to visit later this year.
Overall, I found Tripadvisor's AI planner to be a little helpful for initial research, to get a lay of the land and a general idea of what there is to do in a destination. But it also suggested itineraries that didn't make a ton of sense and weren't tailored enough to me personally to be super worthwhile.
It's worth noting the tool, which launched in July and uses OpenAI's generative-AI technology, is in public beta.
Tripadvisor didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Here's a breakdown of how it went.
The Maui itinerary had some good ideas, but overall, the responses were lacking
The trip planner starts by asking some basic questions:
Where do you want to go? (The world is your oyster!)
When do you want to go? (You can select specific dates or just a trip length, which I thought was useful.)
Who's coming with you? (Going solo or traveling with a partner, friends, or family.)
How do you want to spend your time? (Suggested options you can select include "must-see attractions," "great food," and "museums," and you can type in your own, such as "shopping" or "nightlife.")
And that's it! Certainly all important information, but not enough to differentiate me from the next person traveling to Maui in May with their partner who's also interested in great food, hidden gems, and outdoor adventures.
The resulting itinerary led off with a generic, clearly AI-generated paragraph about how great traveling to Maui is (I know, that's why I'm going!). A five-day itinerary with different activities and restaurants is suggested for each day.
The tool recommended plenty of attractions on Maui that are well worth any visitor's time: Ho'okipa Beach Park, a gorgeous beach and surf spot where you can see sea turtles chilling on the sand; the Road to Hana, a famous winding drive through tropical rainforests with pull-outs for waterfalls and a black sand beach; and Molokini Crater, a volcanic crater accessible by boat and famous for snorkeling.
But it also recommended doing them at weird times. For instance, it said to hit Hana after lunch. The Road to Hana is typically a whole day trip, lasting anywhere from five to seven hours depending on stops, which is kind of the point. The tool even pointed this out — noting that people say it's best to leave early or stay overnight in Hana — but didn't recommend doing either of those things in the planned itinerary.
On another day, it recommended hitting a famous bakery in the morning and heading to a natural area reserve one hour away — which may make sense if you're staying near the bakery, but if you're staying in another area of the island, that would be quite the trek just for breakfast. (Also, the bakery in question has been closed since the wildfires that destroyed much of Lahaina last year.)
But for the most part, the tool tended to recommend attractions and restaurants that were generally in the same area of the island, which was helpful in getting a general lay of the land. It also recommended some iconic restaurants, including the famous fine-dining spot Mama's Fish House, the excellent food truck Geste Shrimp, and Da Kitchen, which serves delicious Hawaiian dishes.
It did, however, leave off some well-known restaurants with must-try dishes — such as Monkeypod Kitchen's signature mai tai with lilikoi foam, the famous roadside pies from Leoda's Kitchen and Pie Shop, and South Maui Fish Company's classic Hawaiian poke.
It also called some attractions "hidden gems" that are, in fact, among the most popular things to do on the island.
Ultimately, the Maui itinerary gave me some good ideas but also some not-so-good ones, and it missed many others. The itinerary schedule was also often not ideal.
Tripadvisor's AI tool was useful for initial research on Montreal
Using the tool to plan a trip to a place I know next to nothing about made me appreciate it a bit more. This time, I asked it to plan for a five-day trip to Montreal with a group of friends in May.
The resulting itinerary included some restaurants I definitely bookmarked and a few museums I plan to visit. But because I know the Maui itinerary left off some key things, I'll still have to do my usual research before going to Montreal — which typically involves spending hours reading every article or blog of the "top 10 things to eat" or the "coolest neighborhoods to visit."
The most useful aspect of Tripadvisor's AI tool was that the itinerary came with a map that marked all of the attractions and restaurants it recommended. For Montreal, it allowed me to quickly pick up a general sense of the city center, where things such as museums or historic buildings are concentrated, and how large an area the typical tourist attractions cover.
The tool also allows you to edit the itinerary very easily. You can add new attractions, ask it to generate more recommendations in different categories, and easily click and drag items to do them in a different order or on different days.
If someone is new to trip planning, I could see it being a useful jumping-off point, albeit one that would require additional research.
Surveys conducted by Longwoods International, a market-research consultancy specializing in the travel-tourism industry, have suggested that consumers haven't taken to using AI to plan trips as quickly as some projected a year ago. In a survey conducted in early February, only 14% of respondents reported using AI to plan trips in the past six months, according to a report shared with Business Insider.
"While artificial intelligence likely will produce significant changes across the travel industry as it evolves and is deployed, its use as a travel planning tool by consumers thus far remains relatively modest," Amir Eylon, the president and CEO of Longwoods International, said.
But with AI still relatively young, tools such as Tripadvisor's are likely to improve. So, despite not planning to use it again soon, I'll probably try AI trip-planning tools again in the future.