I found the perfect seaside town for my summer trip

The Gothic arches of Santa María de la Asunción crown the hill above the stone harbor where fishermen catch sardines and anchovies.

The church in Castro Urdiales, a small seaside town of about 30,000 in northern Spain, is more than 700 years old.

It was the perfect holiday destination for Alan Smith and his family, although he had never heard of it until he asked ChatGPT.

In a report this week from travel association ABTA A growing number of people are turning to AI to help with their holidaysFrom recommending destinations to planning itineraries once you get there.

Alan and his wife drove their caravan to northern Spain from their home in Kent last month, where they met their daughter and her boyfriend.

Alan asked ChatGPT to recommend places they could visit in the area and requested that the journeys between them not be too long.

Castro Urdiales was one of the places recommended by the AI ​​chatbot.

“It was the highlight of the holiday,” says Alan. “It was lively, like a smaller version of San Sebastián.

“It had all the pintxos you could want, but it’s smaller and there are far fewer foreign tourists.”

Alan is 62 years old. According to an ABTA report, 3% of tourists his age are using AI to help with their holidays. The average of the entire population is 8%, and the highest rate of usage is in the 25-34 age group with 18%.

After the AI ​​chatbot gave Alan suggestions about places to visit and routes to take, Alan checked them on Google to make sure they were legitimate.

But he wasn’t sure ChatGPT could pull it off, so he made all the bookings himself – especially considering the amount of money at stake.

Alan started using the AI-powered tool shortly after it launched in November 2022, and he frequently uses it for everything from finding information about places he’s visited to recipes he wants to cook.

Instead of reading various web pages such as travel blogs about beautiful places to visit in Northern Spain, she often turns to this instead of search engines to save time.

“I was blown away by the results,” says Alan. “But this is not always true, and can sometimes be spectacularly false.”

Hannah Read, 37, tried to use an AI chatbot to plan a trip to Norway with her husband and three children.

He wanted to drive from his home in Flintshire, North Wales, and cross the North Sea by ferry.

“I thought this could be a nice journey,” says Hannah. “I asked ChatGPT if there were ferries from the UK to Norway and it said there was a ferry from Newcastle to Bergen.”

He then checked a ferry travel website but found no such route available.

A travel blog detailing how Brits can reach Norway states that the route was last operated in 2008.

“I was a little disappointed when I found out that the information on ChatGPT was wrong, because I got pretty excited and started planning the trip in my head,” adds Hannah.

“My advice is don’t trust AI 100%, still it is better to do proper research.”

David Harris, 46, used AI to plan the itinerary of his family’s first holiday to New York, but he relied more on its recommendations.

Unlike Alan, David knew where he wanted to go and, unlike Hannah, he knew exactly how to get there.

But he wasn’t sure how much he could fit into just a four-and-a-half-day trip, so he turned to an AI-powered tool for help.

David asked for suggestions of places to see and activities to do in the time he had left, and asked for them to be grouped by location so he and his young family could walk through each one.

“When the four of us went, we wanted to see everything from Taylor Swift’s house to the Ghostbusters museum,” says David.

Since he used ChatGPT extensively for work and knew that New York attractions stayed open quite late, he didn’t feel the need to check the opening times and walking directions suggested by the AI ​​chatbot.

“It took a few tips to refine the itinerary – because it gave me a lot of information I didn’t need initially – but it ended up creating a really good list of things to do.”

David admits he hasn’t even considered suggesting possible flights at cheaper prices, but says he’ll try it for a planned holiday to the Mediterranean next year.

He adds: “I think AI tools will be very helpful to people if they understand how to use them and try them out.”

Alistair Berry, moderator of the UK Travel subreddit, an online forum where people can ask for advice on travel options in the UK, says they certainly have their place in holiday planning, but users need to understand how they work and check the recommendations they make.

“Sometimes these chatbots give really bad advice,” says Alistair. “We get a lot of Americans on our site who have relatively few vacation days, and they have AI-curated itineraries.

“ChatGPT convinced them that they could see London, Edinburgh and the Cotswolds in just four days and still have a good time. The truth is they’ll probably spend most of their time looking out from inside the train.”

He says people planning vacations with AI tools need to understand that their programs often incentivize them and confirm the user’s requests and requests.

“It definitely has its place in travel planning, but you should check out the recommendations he makes,” says Alistair.

“After all, you don’t want to get caught when you should be having a relaxing time on vacation.”