Planning a trip used to mean opening dozens of tabs, checking maps (yes, I did that!), comparing routes, and figuring out whether you could realistically fit everything into the time you had. Now, you can ask an AI tool to do much of that in seconds.

Where should I go? How do I get there? How much food will I need? Is this event really happening? What time does the last ride back leave?

The answers can look remarkably convincing. You get precise times, specific places, routes, restaurant names, and detailed recommendations, sometimes in a few seconds.

Until you get there.

In recent months, travelers have relied on AI for everything from routes and opening times to restaurants and entire itineraries, only to discover that some of the information was wrong. A few mistakes meant wasted time or an unexpected change of plans. Others sent people looking for places that weren’t there at all.

And when I say people, I don’t mean one or two tourists standing somewhere with a phone in their hands and wondering what went wrong. In one recent case, hundreds of people arrived – more than ten coaches, plus travelers in their own cars. There’s something odd about the AI part of that particular story, though. I’ll get to that in a moment.

And I also have a funny story of my own – an incident that turned out to be…. good. 

ID 352438891 ©Andrii Iemelianenko | Dreamstime.com 

Three Hikers Used AI to Help Plan Their Trip – Then They Had to Be Rescued

Three novice hikers from Roseville, California, set out to climb Mount Shasta in late August. They had used several online resources to prepare for the trip, including Google’s Gemini AI, YouTube, and AllTrails.

They camped at around 8,400 feet and left at 3 a.m. for the summit. The recommended turnaround time is noon, but they kept climbing and reached the summit at 7 p.m., then had to descend in the dark.

About an hour into the descent, they called the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office for directions. They eventually went off-route into Mud Creek Canyon; one hiker injured his knee after a fall, and the group had to spend the night with very little shelter.

Forest Service climbing rangers reached them the following morning, gave medical assistance and, with help from search-and-rescue volunteers, got everyone back to the trailhead safely.

Several decisions were involved, so it wouldn’t be accurate to blame the entire situation on Gemini. Continuing long after the recommended turnaround time wasn’t an AI decision. But authorities did identify one problem with the AI-assisted preparation. According to the Los Angeles Times, the sheriff’s office said Gemini had advised the hikers to take far less food and water than the group eventually needed when the expected eight-hour ascent turned into a multi-day situation.

And This Wasn’t the First AI-Related Problem Rangers Had Seen

Lead climbing ranger Nick Meyers later said he’d encountered two other AI-related incidents around Mount Shasta during the summer. One involved someone camping in a restricted area after following AI information, while another involved an inaccurate AI-generated map.

Three hikers is one thing, though.

What happened in Europe this weekend involved a lot more people.

Hundreds Arrived for a Festival. There Was An Issue

Imagine booking a day trip to a festival, getting on a coach, traveling there with everyone else, and arriving ready for the event.

Except there is no event.

That’s what happened this weekend in Jurilovca, a village in Romania’s Danube Delta, where more than ten coaches and numerous tourists traveling in their own cars arrived for the Lipovan Borscht Festival.

The festival is real. It has been organized in previous years.

It wasn’t held in 2026.

According to Radio România Constanța, local mayor Eugen Ion said some tourists checked whether the festival was happening by asking ChatGPT – and got the wrong answer. The local administration then tried the same thing and said ChatGPT incorrectly confirmed that the event was taking place that weekend.

But here’s the odd part I mentioned earlier.

The false information didn’t begin with ChatGPT.

Travel agencies had already been advertising excursions to the festival on social media, with different dates appearing during the summer. The mayor said the agencies hadn’t contacted the municipality to confirm the event. Officials contacted agencies and asked them to remove the false offers, but some inaccurate information remained online.

For at least some travelers, asking AI seems like an attempt to check information they had already seen elsewhere.

Instead of exposing the mistake, the AI confirmed it.

I think that’s one of the most useful lessons in this entire story. Asking an AI tool, “Is this true?” doesn’t necessarily give you an independent second source. If incorrect information already exists online, the answer you receive may repeat it.

For an event, I would always look for the organizer’s current website or social accounts, the city or destination’s official page, and an announcement for the specific year I’m visiting. A festival that happened every summer for ten years can still be canceled this year.

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On Another Continent, 24 Travelers Went Looking for Hot Springs 

The Jurilovca festival had existed before, but in Australia the situation was even stranger. An AI-generated article published on a Tasmanian tourism website described the Weldborough Hot Springs as a secluded forest retreat with mineral-rich pools. The attraction was even included among Tasmania’s recommended hot spring experiences.

Travelers started calling the local Weldborough Hotel asking how to find them.

There was a slight problem.

Weldborough doesn’t have hot springs.

The nearby Weld River is actually cold.

Hotel publican Kristy Probert told ABC News Australia she was receiving inquiries about the nonexistent attraction every day. One group of 24 travelers from mainland Australia had even taken a detour specifically to visit the hot springs.

The company behind the tourism website acknowledged that AI-generated material from a third party had gone badly wrong and said it would review the content.

For travelers, however, the page looked real enough to change their route.

And that brings us to another problem with AI travel planning: sometimes you’re not asking AI for the bad information yourself. You may find a normal-looking travel page through search, never realizing that the page you’re trusting was itself generated with AI and wasn’t properly checked.

A Romantic Sunset in Japan Came With a Problem ChatGPT Hadn’t Mentioned

Some AI mistakes don’t invent an attraction. The place is real, the activity is real, and almost everything in the answer can be correct.

Then one small detail isn’t.

A couple used ChatGPT while planning a sunset trip to Mount Misen on the Japanese island of Itsukushima. They explored Miyajima and headed up the mountain in time for sunset, expecting to take the ropeway back down afterward.

The closing information ChatGPT had given them was wrong.

When they were ready to descend, the ropeway was already closed, leaving them on the mountain after dark, according to a BBC report. I’ve spent a lot of time creating detailed travel itineraries, and I check transport times carefully.  

In Peru, AI Apparently Combined Real Names Into a Place That Wasn’t Real

Two tourists in Peru had plans to hike to somewhere called the “Sacred Canyon of Humantay.” A local trekking guide overheard them and asked where they were going. No Sacred Canyon of Humantay exists.

The name appears to have combined real geographical names into a plausible-sounding destination. According to the guide, one tourist had already spent nearly $160 to reach a rural road near Mollepata before the mistake was caught (as per the BBC article). 

Sometimes You Just End Up Looking for Dinner

Thankfully, plenty of AI travel mistakes are more frustrating than dangerous. Fast Company journalist Jessica Bursztynsky tested ChatGPT by asking it to plan a weekend in Bolinas, California. Her itinerary included real beaches, a real museum and a kayaking suggestion that turned out to be one of the best parts of the trip.

The restaurant recommendations were rather less successful. ChatGPT suggested Wharf Road Restaurant & Bar, but she couldn’t find a record of it on Google, her mapping app or in her hotel’s local restaurant information. Another recommendation, Bolinas Baking Company, couldn’t be found either. A restaurant suggested for later in the trip was permanently closed.

I wouldn’t stop using AI because it gave me a bad restaurant recommendation. But I’d absolutely search the restaurant name and exact address before building an evening around it – the same way I check an exact location when booking a hotel. Plus, AI keeps evolving so, hopefully, the recommendations will become more and more accurate.

Even Getting Across Washington, D.C. Didn’t Go Exactly to Plan

The Washington Post tried a similar experiment with ChatGPT in Washington, D.C., and one problem appeared when the reporter needed to get from the National Mall to Union Market.

ChatGPT told her to take the Red Line from L’Enfant Plaza. The Red Line doesn’t serve L’Enfant Plaza.

The same itinerary produced restaurant suggestions that included places that were permanently closed, somewhere else in the city and, in one case, in another state. Transit information is one of those things I check close to the trip because routes, construction work, timetables, and temporary closures change. When we drove in Germany, for example, navigation worked very well for us, but we still followed the road signs first. 

And Yes, AI Invented Another Festival Too

ID 147665115 ©Oleh Panasenko | Dreamstime.com 

There’s another festival story, although on a much smaller scale than the hundreds who arrived in Jurilovca. British technology presenter Georgie Barrat wrote about a holiday in Spain’s Costa Brava with her university friends. Over the years, the group had grown to 10 adults and 10 children.

They managed to arrange babysitters for all ten children so the adults could have a night out at a local festival ChatGPT had said was happening.

On the day, however, they noticed something strange. Staging in town was being taken down.

They asked at a bar. There was no festival that night. Barrat described what happened in her own first-person account. I can only imagine the conversation among 20 people after discovering that one – especially after arranging ten babysitters.

AI Travel Planning Isn’t Going Away

These stories may sound like unusual travel mishaps, but using AI to plan vacations is already common.

A travel-industry study released in August 2026 found that 54% of travelers surveyed had already used AI to plan travel and 75% intended to use it for future trips. Earlier global Booking.com research found people were using AI for destination research, activities, restaurants and navigation during trips.

So I don’t think the useful question is, “Should people stop using AI for travel?” I think the better question is: which parts of a trip can AI help with, and which details should you never accept without checking?

I’ve always liked planning our trips myself, from choosing where we’ll stay to working out what we can realistically see in a day. AI can make the initial part of that process much faster, especially when you’re comparing possibilities or trying to organize a complicated itinerary. My own trip-planning process involves many separate checks anyway, so for me AI fits into that process rather than replacing it.

I Once Let Waze Send Us Somewhere Unexpected – And I’m Glad I Did

I have my own navigation story, although mine ended very differently.

We were going to the Transfăgărășan, one of my favorite roads and somewhere we’ve been many times. My husband and I were in the car with our son and our beautiful dog, Maxie.

We use Waze daily. I even include Waze among the travel apps I actually use rather than downloading and forgetting about.

But that day I did something I hadn’t really done before. I looked at the alternative routes and chose one that seemed less crowded.

So we drove.

And drove.

At one point, we reached a sign indicating a forest road.

Well… this was definitely not our usual road to the Transfăgărășan.

There was nothing dangerous about where we were, and we hadn’t gone far out of our way, so we stopped the car and got out for a little while.

And I’m so glad we did.

I still remember the air.

The forest smelled incredible. There was no one else there, no barbecue smoke, no cars passing us, no exhaust. Just trees, fresh air, and beautiful scenery.

Maxie was happy. Our son was happy. I closed my eyes for a moment simply to enjoy the smell, then opened them and looked around. We stood there and enjoyed the silence – not complete silence, of course, because we could hear the sounds of the forest, but the kind of silence you rarely get when you’re visiting a popular tourist attraction.

Eventually we got back in the car, chose the familiar route, and continued to the Transfăgărășan.

And yes, when we reached it, there were crowds, cars, and everything you’d expect. The air wasn’t the same.

That tiny accidental detour remains one of my favorite memories from that day.

We’ve taken many family road trips, including plenty with Maxie, and unexpected stops can become wonderful memories. When traveling with a dog by car, a quiet place where everyone can safely get out and stretch their legs can be very welcome too.

But there is a huge difference between an unexpected, safe little road detour and relying on incorrect information about how much water you’ll need on a mountain, whether the last ropeway is still running, or whether the event you’re traveling several hours to attend actually exists.

How I Would Use AI to Plan a Trip – Without Letting It Make the Important Decisions for Me

I use technology when I travel and I have no intention of going back to planning everything with printed brochures and a huge paper map spread across the table. 

Use AI to build the first version of the trip

This is where I think it can be extremely useful.

You can ask for destinations that match your interests, possible day trips, ways to group attractions geographically, ideas for a three-day itinerary, things a teenager might enjoy, alternatives if it rains or questions you should research before booking.

You can even ask it to take a long list of attractions and arrange them into days. I still leave some space in an itinerary rather than packing every hour, but AI can save a surprising amount of time at this stage.

For current facts, ask for the source – and then open it

If an answer says a festival takes place on September 5, don’t stop at the date in the AI response.

Open the organizer’s page.

If the answer says the last train leaves at 9:42 p.m., open the railway operator’s current timetable.

If a museum supposedly closes at 8 p.m., look at the museum’s official website for your exact date.

As Jurilovca showed, asking the same AI another way isn’t really verification.

Check events by year, not only by name

Recurring events create an easy trap because old pages often remain online.

A search result proving that a festival happened in 2024 doesn’t prove it’s happening in 2026. Look for the current edition, current dates, and an official announcement.

I do the same when deciding the best time to travel: seasonal information is useful, but weather, road access and event dates still need a current check.

For mountains, remote areas and hiking routes, go straight to local experts

AI can help you make a list of questions. It shouldn’t be your only source for a backcountry route, weather conditions, water requirements, equipment, avalanche conditions, trail closures or turnaround times.

Check the park service, ranger station, official trail information and current weather, and carry a backup navigation method. On a road trip, I still like having some of the road-trip essentials that seem old-fashioned until the phone has no signal or the battery dies.

Search the exact address of hotels, restaurants, and attractions

If AI gives you the name of an amazing little restaurant, don’t only ask whether it’s good.

Search the exact name and address. Look at recent reviews. Check whether there are new reviews from the last few weeks. Open the restaurant’s own website or social page if it has one.

For hotels, I go further because location, parking, renovations, room type, cancellation conditions, and other details can affect the entire trip. The beautiful description isn’t enough.

Never use AI as your final source for passports, visas, or entry rules

Travel-document requirements can change, and the exact rule may depend on your citizenship, passport, transit country, and route. Use government immigration pages, embassy or consulate information, the airline and reliable official document tools. My international travel document checklist covers the details I check before booking because discovering an entry problem at the airport is far worse than correcting it while you’re still at home.

If AI creates your packing list, check it against the actual trip

A generic packing list doesn’t know everything about you, your medication, your child’s needs, the weather change expected tomorrow or the fact that one attraction requires a specific item.

For flights, I want certain carry-on essentials within reach, regardless of what an automatically generated list suggests.

Save the information you’ll actually need when you’re there

Once I’ve checked something, I don’t want to depend on finding it again at the worst possible moment. I save addresses, reservations, transport details and essential travel information on my phone, preferably with offline access.

I don’t keep crucial information in only one place, either. Phones fail, batteries die and accounts can log you out. There are several things I wouldn’t keep only on a phone, especially when losing access could derail the trip.

AI Can Be a Very Good Travel Assistant. It Shouldn’t Be the Only One You Ask.

I understand why people use ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI tools for travel. Planning can take hours, especially when you’re visiting somewhere new and trying to compare hotels, attractions, transport, costs and opening times at the same time.

AI can turn that mess into a usable starting point remarkably quickly.

I’d use it for ideas. I’d use it to organize information. I’d use it to suggest routes, compare possibilities and find questions I hadn’t thought to ask.

But if a detail can leave me stranded, cost me a large amount of money, stop me at a border or send my family several hours in the wrong direction, I want another source.

Preferably the source that actually runs the train, manages the mountain, organizes the event or owns the place I’m planning to visit.

Because an unexpected forest road can become one of the best parts of your trip.

Discovering the hot springs don’t exist after you’ve driven there?

I’d rather know before I leave.

Note: I know people who say they leave everything up to AI – after training it, giving it details about preferences, styles, etc. I admit that I am still reluctant to leave it all up to AI. In fact, I like doing some of the planning. Sure, I love help finding cheaper flights or hotels, but still, I have the ultimate saying (my family and I decide together), I control the final things, despite what AI can do. 

Questions About Using AI to Plan a Trip

Is ChatGPT reliable for travel planning?

ChatGPT can be useful for travel ideas, organizing an itinerary, comparing options and identifying things you may want to research. Current details such as opening hours, transport schedules, event dates, entry requirements and conditions in remote areas should be checked with official or primary sources before you rely on them.

Can AI plan an entire vacation?

It can create a complete itinerary, but I’d treat it as a draft rather than a finished travel plan. Verify that the places exist, check current opening hours and travel times, confirm bookings and events, and make sure the itinerary is realistic for the people traveling.

Why does AI sometimes recommend places that don’t exist?

Generative AI can produce information that sounds plausible without being accurate. It may combine real names or details, use outdated information, misinterpret what it finds, or repeat incorrect material already published online. The result can sound just as confident as a correct answer.

What travel information should you always verify?

I would independently verify flight and train schedules, last transport times, road and trail conditions, event dates, opening hours, ticket requirements, hotel and restaurant addresses, visa and passport rules, safety information, weather-dependent activities and anything involving a remote or potentially dangerous location.