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For many, travel remains a cherished activity and a significant expenditure, yet the intricacies of planning a dream vacation can often feel daunting. Even seasoned travelers, with numerous domestic and international trips under their belts, frequently find the booking process stressful.
Recent surveys indicate a strong resurgence in travel demand. A study from March 2025 revealed that nearly half of Americans (44%) are planning trips involving flights or hotel stays this summer. This translates to millions preparing for summer travel, securing passports and crafting detailed itineraries. For those seeking guidance in navigating this process, artificial intelligence (AI) offers a suite of powerful solutions. From versatile chatbots like ChatGPT, capable of addressing a wide array of travel-related questions, to specialized tools such as Booking.com’s AI Trip Planner, which functions as a personalized AI travel assistant, numerous options are available. However, Google’s AI tools provide particularly effective assistance for summer travel preparations.
Google recently unveiled several new AI-driven features and enhancements across its applications and services, all designed to streamline vacation planning and booking. These updates, spanning Google Search, Maps, Lens, and Gemini, aim to empower users to plan and enjoy exceptional travel experiences.
For further travel advice, explore resources on the optimal times to purchase airline tickets and strategies for securing affordable flights. Additionally, insights are available on leveraging Google Maps for stress-free travel experiences.
AI-Powered Custom Travel Itineraries
Google’s AI Overviews in Search simplifies travel planning. Launched initially in March 2024 and utilized extensively since then, this tool excels at crafting bespoke travel itineraries for various destinations. For example, it efficiently generated a bookstore-centric tour of Edinburgh during a three-day visit last May.
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This feature now boasts expanded capabilities. Google has announced plans to broaden AI Overviews in Search, enabling the creation of day-by-day itineraries not only for cities but also for broader regions or entire countries. Users can simply input commands such as “create a history-focused itinerary for England” or “design a nature-centric itinerary for New Zealand.”
The AI leverages extensive data from diverse sources, including reviews, photographs, and business profiles contributed to Google over time. Generated itineraries can then be easily exported to Gmail, Docs, or Maps for convenient access and use.
It remains crucial to approach AI-generated information with critical assessment. These tools are not infallible and may occasionally produce inaccuracies or fabrications. Diligent fact-checking using reliable sources is essential to verify information and mitigate the risks of AI-driven hallucinations, questionable sources, or misinformation. For an illustrative case study, refer to Katie Collins’ analysis at FASTNET, which rigorously tested the accuracy of several AI tools concerning a familiar city.
Gemini for Travel Inspiration
Travel planning, particularly in unfamiliar urban environments, can be overwhelming. In such instances, Gemini, Google’s AI chatbot, can offer valuable support. Since the fall 2024 Google Maps update, Gemini can suggest activities and dining options tailored to travelers’ needs.
Users can also request budget-conscious activity suggestions within a city or explore options for indoor activities during inclement weather in a chosen country. Gemini utilizes Google reviews to curate personalized recommendations, visually presented as pins on the map. This functionality simplifies the planning process, facilitating the discovery of customized options and reducing travel-related stress.
For comparative purposes, similar travel-related queries posed to other chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude often yield comparable results. However, it is consistently advisable to independently verify information provided by any AI chatbot.
Creating a Personalized AI Travel Agent
Gemini’s “Gems” feature allows users to customize Gemini into a personal AI expert. Gems are tailored versions of Gemini designed to assist with repetitive tasks or provide insights during research. This capability enables the creation of a dedicated “travel planner Gem” to aid in selecting destinations, identifying restaurants in new cities, or determining appropriate packing lists for specific vacations.
Google now offers Gems without subscription fees. To access this feature, users must be logged into Gemini Apps and can then create custom Gems via the “Gems manager” on desktop.
Experimentation with this feature involved creating a “travel agent” Gem. Instructions outlining the Gem’s primary objectives, capabilities, desired response style, and tone were provided.
When prompted to create a 10-day island-hopping itinerary in the Caribbean with the query, “I’ve always wanted to island-hop around the Caribbean islands. Please create an itinerary (for about 10 days), hitting the major islands and biggest attractions,” the Travel Agent Gem responded by requesting information about the preferred travel season, budget, and desired travel pace. Based on the provided responses, it formulated a 10-day itinerary encompassing Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, and Barbados, incorporating interests in beaches, nature, and historical sites.
Gems offers a free resource to design customized dream vacations, potentially eliminating the need for costly traditional travel agents. While these AI tools provide significant assistance, they cannot fully replace the expertise and nuanced insights of human travel professionals.
AI-Powered Organization of Travel Idea Screenshots
For individuals who frequently capture screenshots of travel inspiration from social media platforms, Pinterest, TikTok, and travel blogs, managing these visual resources can become cumbersome. Accumulating numerous screenshots of restaurants, museums, parks, and attractions often leads to a disorganized collection.
Google’s recent announcement includes a new Maps app feature designed to identify locations within screenshots and consolidate them into a list, thereby streamlining travel plan organization. This feature scans screenshots for text mentioning specific places, displays these locations on a map interface, and allows users to review, save, or share them.
The screenshot list feature is currently available for iOS users in the US, with Android support planned for future release.
Finding Affordable Hotel Accommodations
While flight booking might present less of a financial hurdle, securing hotel accommodations often represents a significant travel expense. Lodging frequently constitutes the largest single cost component of any trip.
Leveraging Google Flights for finding economical air travel is a common practice. Google is now extending comparable functionality to hotel bookings.
At google.com/hotels, a new option enables users to track prices for selected dates and destinations. Similar to Google Flights, activating the price-tracking feature beneath the search filters will trigger email notifications when substantial price reductions occur for hotels within the search results. Users can further refine tracking with filters based on star ratings, beach access, and specific areas displayed on the map.
AI as a Travel Guide
While not a newly introduced travel feature, Google Lens offers a valuable tool to enhance travel experiences, particularly in international settings. Language barriers often constitute a primary concern for travelers in foreign countries, with the prospect of disorientation and communication difficulties posing valid anxieties. Google Lens effectively mitigates these concerns.
Lens facilitates easy access to information about surroundings, local languages, and points of interest. It accurately and rapidly translates street signs, maps, menus, and other text, aiding navigation in linguistically unfamiliar environments. Simply pointing a camera, activating the translate filter, and observing real-time on-screen translation makes communication effortless.
Lens extends beyond text translation, capable of swiftly identifying objects or buildings. Encountering a gathering of people around a statue or a building entrance? Directing the camera and posing queries such as “What is this?” prompts Lens to generate an AI Overview with relevant information and links to supplementary resources.
AI Overviews in Lens and Circle to Search are currently available for English language queries, with planned expansion to include Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish language support soon.
For additional information, consult traveler’s preparation checklists and strategies to minimize flight cancellation or delay risks.