I Let AI Plan My Hong Kong Trip. It Understood Me Better Than Travel Guides — and Made Things Up. A few days ago, I tried something new: instead of searching through countless travel guides and videos, I asked AI to plan my trip to Hong Kong. I primarily used Gemini, with Grok and ChatGPT as supplementary tools. They helped me organize locations, build itineraries, prepare packing lists, and even convert store addresses into Google Maps links. Most of my requirements were met. Still, the overall experience was not as impressive as I had expected.
The clearest advantage was personalization. Traditional travel guides tell you where everyone goes. AI could work around my schedule, interests, starting point, and shopping plans to build a route specifically for me. Most places were arranged in a logical order, the transitions were smooth, and the itinerary rarely made me double back. Compared with repeatedly searching, watching videos, and manually stitching everything together, this was genuinely efficient.
But the biggest weakness was equally clear: hallucinations. At times, AI produced an address that sounded detailed and convincing but simply did not exist on the map. Place names, locations, opening hours, and even whether a shop was still operating could be wrong. If I failed to verify each detail, one invented fact could disrupt an entire section of the itinerary. The time AI saved during planning could easily be lost on the ground while searching for a nonexistent place or correcting its route.
After this trip, my view of AI travel planning is simple: Next time, I would ask AI to create the overall itinerary, use other models to identify gaps or suggest alternatives, and then verify every important detail through maps and official websites. In other words, AI has not eliminated search. It has changed the task from “searching everywhere for travel advice” to “verifying the facts that actually matter.” Overall, Gemini, Grok, and ChatGPT completed most of what I asked of them. They are already useful, but they are still a long way from being tools I would trust with an entire trip without supervision. Would you let AI plan a whole trip for you?
I use AI to plan my trips in seconds. Then I need to spend weeks verifying the logistics and budget.
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One thing I’ve learned about using AI: when something works well, turn it into a Skill, Agent, Project, or Memory. When something doesn’t work, review it.
You can even ask the AI directly: “What did you do poorly here?” Then let it try again.
The good becomes a reusable system. The bad becomes feedback.
I’ve noticed another limitation of AI: when processing video, it seems that some systems rely heavily on key frames or sampling instead of continuously watching the entire video like a human.
That becomes especially frustrating with videos or live conversations, where understanding the sequence of events actually matters.