ChatGPT has taken the Internet by storm, but some of you may not really dove in on how ChatGPT can help you with travel planning. ChatGPT is a language learning model that pulls information from the Internet and regurgitates it in sentence form; it’s highly impressive, but you shouldn’t overestimate its use. I’ve seen some tips online, but they aren’t as thorough as I prefer and honestly I think we may be missing some key parts that can affect your travel itinerary. Here are some ways you can use ChatGPT to plan your vacation as well as some ways that you shouldn’t prioritize ChatGPT’s information:

ChatGPT Prompts You May Use to Plan Your Vacation

1. Using ChatGPT for general booking information.

ChatGPT is a great way to find general booking information like, “when is the best time to visit Chicago for snow?” as well as, “what should I pack for comfort during a Chicago winter?“

We can use Chicago as an example because I am from here, but you can use these tips for any location you plan on going to. Chicago really dives into all four seasons and if you have a specific vision of when you’d like to explore the city, you may want to avoid the especially rainy or especially snowy seasons that we have here. Asking ChatGPT questions about the specific season that you’d like to explore an area allows you to get a timeframe of when you should fly in. Could you imagine only packing flip-flops because it’s summer where you are, but then quickly discovering at the airport that you need snow boots and a double lined winter coat? The example may sound a little bit silly now, but there’s plenty of times where winter comes a bit early or summer extends itself and that season your visions beforehand is just not timed appropriately.

2. Using ChatGPT for a bit of pre-research.

ChatGPT is a great way to find transportation information like, “how can I get around Chicago without a car?” or “what apps do Chicago locals use to get around?“

Secondly, doing some pre-research on Chicago normalities what allow you to discover things that you didn’t realize you may have needed initially. As an example, Chicago has different public transportation lines, but they all aren’t created equally and don’t function the same. Even as a local, there have been times where I forget that some bus lines and earlier in the day while others remain a bit throughout the night; it’s also easy to forget the public transportation may add an additional hour to an hour and a half to the timeline of where you plan on going. Asking brief questions about how to get through the city may tremendously help you plan a realistic itineraries for when you are finally here.

3. Use ChatGPT to find inspiration that you may not have seen on Instagram.

Some prompts you can use with ChatGPT to find inspiration include: “what are some hidden gems that a tourist may not know about in Chicago?” or you can prompt, “what are some things that you must do when traveling to Chicago for the first time?“

Instagram is the source to so much travel inspiration, but since content creators are looking for things that look great on camera it may be true that they avoid other places that aren’t as easy to document. Asking ChatGPT about some hidden gems or must-do activities around Chicago may actually help you find some attractions that you haven’t previously heard of before. (I also share quite a few free Chicago guides for those of you who are looking to extend your itinerary without spending more money.)

3. Use ChatGPT as a handheld assistant by asking for the rundown on any activity that you’re interested in, as well as requesting links.

One of my favorite things to do is ask in ChatGPT about a topic and then diving in deeper layer, by layer; my least favorite thing to do is learning that ChatGPT may have made up some information along the way – it’s been super helpful to specifically ask for relevant links as well as the responses to remain informationally accurate while doing my research.

You may ask ChatGPT about the, “Best pizza places that Chicago has the offer” but unbeknownst to the both of you, most of the locations that were mentioned are no longer in business or have moved to another part of the city. Asking for links along with ChatGPT is responsive allows you to come in and double check so you can integrate these plans into your itinerary seamlessly.

Reason Why ChatGPT Can’t Completely Help Travel Planning

You should not fully trust chatGPT with your upcoming travel plans without double checking.

It’s true that I’ve given you so many reasons that ChatGPT can be helpful during the travel planning experience, but I know point that I say to fully trust this language learning model with your money and your time without double checking the sources. You can ask ChatGPT to plan a walking tour of a city want to explore, but it doesn’t mean that it gives you a realistic walking distance between the points; making sure that you come in afterwards and double checking how far the attractions are from each other will allow you to fully understand whether or not ChatGPT understood what you were visioning.

Are you currently using ChatGPT?

If you are currently using ChatGPT I’d love to hear more about the features that you use, especially if you’ve already been utilizing it for travel planning. ChatGPT is super popular right now and I can’t scroll on any of my business, entrepreneurial or even job searching mediums without hearing about how it can improve the process, but I don’t hear much about it in the travel realm. I hope you found some of the tips that I’ve included helpful and I would love if you commented any tips that you found beneficial that I may have missed – it may help my personal process with travel planning. If you are looking for more travel planning tips, please be sure to check out my previous blogs that include how I travel plan.