AI can build an itinerary in seconds, suggest restaurants, and organize a complicated vacation. But speed doesn’t always mean accuracy. A confident answer can still lead you to the wrong place.
Travel experts say AI works best as a planning assistant—not a replacement for experienced editors, local knowledge, or human judgment.
Here are five ways to use it more wisely.
1. Let AI Handle the Travel Planning
One of AI’s most practical uses is organizing travel details. It can help compile flight information, hotel reservations, loyalty numbers, dietary restrictions, and personal preferences into a single travel document.
Travel + Leisure editor-in-chief Jacqueline Gifford uses AI to maintain a family travel document containing essential information that can be shared with travel advisors or hotels when needed.
The smarter move: Create a reusable travel document to simplify trip preparation. Keep sensitive information secure and share it only when necessary.
2. Build an Itinerary Around Your Preferences
AI can turn a list of destinations, interests, and activities into a structured itinerary. Tell it whether you prefer museums, outdoor adventures, relaxed mornings, or family-friendly attractions, and it can organize suggestions around those priorities.
However, a polished itinerary may still overlook opening hours, transportation times, reservation requirements, or whether the schedule is realistic.
The smarter move: Use AI to create your first draft, then verify important details before leaving.
3. Don’t Trust Every Restaurant Recommendation
AI can suggest restaurants based on published information, but it may miss emerging destinations, local favorites, and recommendations that depend on firsthand experience.
At a recent Travel + Leisure summit in London, People Inc. chief innovation officer Jonathan Roberts highlighted this limitation: AI can struggle with current, on-the-ground information that has not been published online.
Experienced travel editors and advisors can draw on personal visits, industry contacts, and conversations with local experts—knowledge that may not be available to an AI tool.
The smarter move: Treat AI-generated restaurant lists as starting points. Cross-check recommendations with recent reviews, local publications, and trusted travel experts.
4. Use Local-Language Searches to Discover More
Roberts suggested giving AI examples of restaurants and places you already love, asking it to build a profile of your preferences, and then using that profile to search in the local language of your next destination.
This approach may help surface niche options that English-language searches overlook.
But a recommendation that sounds authentic is not necessarily current or accurate.
The smarter move: Use local-language suggestions to discover possibilities, then verify that the places exist, suit your preferences, and are still open.
5. Verify Before You Book
AI can make a bad decision feel easy because it often delivers answers with confidence. Yet prices, availability, transportation schedules, and entry requirements can change quickly.
As Roberts warned during the discussion, “AI is an amazing liar.” The point is not that every answer is wrong, but that confident wording is no guarantee of accuracy.
The smarter move: Confirm critical details through official airline, hotel, government, and attraction websites. For complicated or expensive trips, consider getting help from a knowledgeable travel advisor.
The Smarter Take
AI can save time, organize information, and help travelers explore possibilities they might otherwise miss. Its biggest limitation is that a convincing answer is not necessarily a correct one.
Use AI for brainstorming, planning, and narrowing your options. Rely on verified sources and human expertise when decisions depend on current facts, firsthand knowledge, or personal judgment.