#Microblog Monday 452: Terrible Travel Agents
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I found a tool that looked super promising. You plug in what you’re looking for in a trip, and it spits back out an itinerary. How brilliant is that?
But I didn’t know if it would plan a good trip, so I decided to begin with a place I knew very well. It sent me first to a restaurant that closed at least one year ago. Not a great start. But it redeemed itself with a fun free morning activity. Then it sent me on an expensive activity that was a repeat of the free activity, but it broke it up by sending me to cooking school in the UK for lunch, giving me a half-hour window to get from Virginia to the UK and back. The next day, they finished the itinerary with another closed restaurant. In the meantime, it missed the island’s two vegetarian options.
Maybe not.
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3 comments
Ugh, that’s disappointing. I was excited because my dad is going on a trip up the CA coast, and I looked up all the restaurants from our trip in 2017 and THEY ARE ALL STILL OPEN! It feels like a minor miracle. Why on earth would that website give you two activities, basically the same, but one free and one expensive, in the same day? So bizarre.
Wow. I asked for a 7-day wintertime camping trip in SC, which is a routine family activity for us. The itinerary it proposed is insane. First stop, Charleston (no mention of where to camp, though the city has a nice public park with campsites). Next night, Hunting Island, not too far away and a great choice IMO (but no way would I move after camping for just 1 night). Next night, Congaree, about a 3-hour drive near Columbia. Next night, Table Rock, a 2.5-hour drive. Next a … day trip?! to Myrtle Beach 5 hours away (so 10 hours r/t). But then the following and final night I’m to spend at Francis Marion National Forest, a 5-hour drive (and only 2 hours from Myrtle Beach). And then if I can squeeze it in, I should drive 2.5 hours to Columbia for a day stop, though I could have visited there with just a 40 minute r/t drive while I was in Congaree?
I guess travel agents don’t have to worry that AI will be taking their jobs yet.
Haha, that was kind of fun. I typed in a 5-day trip to a major US city that I know well. The restaurant recommendations were great, but it had me going to the same museum every day. And it had absolutely no regard for traffic patterns. Entertaining tool but not very useful.