Planning a vacation isn't anywhere near as fun as grabbing your passport and going away, so the concept of outsourcing the hard graft to AI bots like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude may sound ideal.
This shortlist from Bodog highlights some of AI's most spectacular fails, and it might just inspire you to stick to the old-fashioned approach of consulting Google Maps, guidebooks, and common sense thinking.
What Happens When an AI Travel Planner Gets It Wrong
For some, the allure of chucking in your interests, a rough budget, and a set of available dates into a chatbot to be rewarded with a once-in-a-lifetime dream vacation sounds too good to be true. Yet, you may be risking your life based on some automated travel advisory, as these cautionary tales reveal.
The Peruvian Tourist Attraction That Never Existed
Now, being sent to a fictitious attraction in downtown Manhattan would be considered inconvenient; doing so in the Andes Mountains in Peru based on an AI recommendation is another matter entirely. As was the case when two intrepid hikers embarking on a trek to one of Peru’s best-kept secrets were warned by a local guide just as they set off that the place actually doesn’t exist.
Believing they had found a true Peruvian bucket-list destination and having forked out an extra $160 for the privilege, the unassuming tourists were all set to hike to the epic-sounding "Sacred Canyon of Humantay," the guide, an owner of a travel agency, told The BBC. Fortunately for them, fate saved them that day, as this particular AI travel tip would have left them stuck 4,000 meters above sea level with no oxygen supply and no phone signal to alert rescuers either.
ChatGPT Said No Visa Required But Chilean Customs Officers Said Think Again
Another example of flawed AI travel planner advice going awry happened to Australian marketing strategist and author Mark Pollard, who unwittingly trusted ChatGPT's assurances regarding his visa requirements to enter Chile. This decision reportedly left him stranded in Mexico City after he was unable to board his flight to Chile, meaning he missed the conference he was due to attend.
The incident turned out to be serious enough for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to publicize the blunder, warning travelers of the dangers of blindly following AI travel responses.
A Relaxing 1,400-kilometer "Day Trip" in Vietnam
In this instance, a Singaporean traveler explained on TikTok how she tasked Notion AI with building an exciting 12-day travel itinerary for her trip to Vietnam, which, on the face of it, looked impressively comprehensive. The only problem was that her AI guide had scheduled a quick day trip to Ba Na Hills while she was based in Hanoi… the only thing is, it's 1,400 kilometers (nearly 870 miles) there and back.
The Magical Restaurant That Vanished into Thin Air
Fortunately, the next AI-inspired indiscretion was rather more comical than it was concerning, as one travel writer, Jordan Waller, discovered upon requesting recommendations during a magic-themed getaway to Lisbon, Portugal. In a story for The Points Guy, Waller explained that all seemed well until ChatGPT suggested the writer try out the Palácio do Mago in the heart of the city, a popular haunt where local magicians were regularly said to perform.
The only problem was that this particularly apt Lisbon travel tip turned out to be nothing more than a wild ChatGPT hallucination — a startling revelation the chatbot eventually conceded to after being pressed for more details of the establishment’s dazzling credentials.
Other Humorous AI Travel Planner Fails
Not every AI travel foible will leave you stranded in the Andes Mountains or having to share screenshots with Chilean immigration officials to justify your visit, but there are several chatbot gaffes that have gone viral, if only because of the rather hilarious circumstances involved.
One of the more glaringly obvious examples of this was Layla AI Trip Planner's suggestion that, for a time, Paris' Eiffel Tower was actually located in Beijing, China.
Another was a laughable dining recommendation made by restaurant as a glamorous suggestion: hardly suitable for infants to start with, but made worse because it had since relocated across the water to Greenland.
Even the Biggest Travel Firms Have Suffered from Major AI Goofs Too
Airlines and global travel companies have also fallen foul of AI’s unwittingly Machiavellian suggestions.
A case in point was Air Canada, which was ordered to pay compensation to a customer after its own AI chatbot had declared he was eligible for a refund in relation to the airline's discounted bereavement fare — which turned out not to be the case.
Similarly, in countering these types of AI-infused errors, leading online booking platforms like Airbnb and Expedia now have dedicated disclaimer pages stating that machine-generated responses may be inaccurate and prone to making mistakes: handy to know ahead of purchasing your airline tickets in future.
Planes, Trains and AI Travel Hallucinations
Why is travel such a difficult problem for AI? The fundamental problem with AI chatbots is that while they are ultra-efficient in generating suggestions at the drop of a hat, sometimes the resources they draw from can be misconstrued or, more often than not, simply out of date. At the same time, their inspiring travel-themed suggestions are superbly worded to sound very convincing, even when the underlying claim may be totally nonsensical.
Worse still, in an effort to please, if AI can’t distinguish an actual answer, as with Palácio do Mago, it has a really bad habit of making things up. This is all well and good when you turn up at an address, and the restaurant you had planned to eat in doesn’t exist, but it’s an entirely different matter when AI recommends climbing an active volcano.
The Things You Really Shouldn’t Leave to an AI Travel Planner
Whether you're planning a dream Caribbean vacation or attending an event following the latest sports tourism trend, the number one rule when utilizing an AI travel planner to help plan your trip: Always independently check every aspect of your itinerary. This can range from basic chatbot advice like hotel and restaurant recommendations to more complex matters such as travel insurance, vaccinations, visa requirements — not to mention the terms and conditions of any booking policies.
Bodog
If you don’t verify the info and something is incorrect, in the best-case scenario, you’ll have a funny travel anecdote to share when you get home, but in the worst case, you may be risking your life or putting yourself at risk of legal jeopardy while abroad.
This story was produced by Bodog and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
