AI trip planners confidently produced 2026 itineraries that looked plausible but contained multiple factual errors per trip: hotels listed at wrong addresses or with closed-down operators, opening hours based on 'typical' patterns rather than actual business hours, walking and transit times miscalculated by 30-50%, and visa-on-arrival rules cited as current when the country had changed them 18 months earlier.
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Expert: TravelAnywhere editors, Former travel writers TravelAnywhere — run by former travel writers — put ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude through real trip-planning tests for 2026 and found the same failure pattern in all three: strong on broad structure, unreliable on granular detail. Hotels were placed at wrong addresses or pointed to operators that had closed; opening hours reflected 'typical' patterns instead of actual business hours; walking and transit times were off by 30-50%; and visa-on-arrival rules were stated as current when the destination had changed them 18 months earlier. The problem is not that AI cannot plan a trip. It is that the details that make or break a trip — addresses, hours, transit times, visa rules — are exactly where the models are weakest. Plausible-sounding itineraries give travelers false confidence, and the errors are hard to spot without checking every claim against a primary source. CNBC noted in March 2026 that 'worries about AI hallucinations and real-world nuances persist despite increased usage of AI travel planners.' The practical rule: use AI for ideas and rough structure, then verify every address, hour, route, and rule against the official source before booking. Source: https://www.travelanywhere.blog/blog/chatgpt-vs-gemini-vs-claude-trip-planning-2026-tested-comparison
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For a fictional five-day trip to Sao Paulo, tested undercover on fresh accounts so the bots would not know the writer had lived in the city for years, the chatbots produced confident and specific recommendations that did not hold up. Gemini - which promotes its access to Google Maps information and user reviews - recommended one restaurant and one place to hear live music that were no longer open, something any human user of Maps could have figured out. Claude made what the writer calls one blatant hallucination: it recommended two traditional Brazilian bakeries "that haven't gone gourmet", which turned out to be a parking lot and a Japanese restaurant when checked on Google Maps. Both bots conceded the errors once challenged - Gemini wrote that the writer was "100% correct" and that it "completely deserved to be thoroughly benched on this planning session". ChatGPT produced no error the writer caught, which he notes is not the same thing as producing none.
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