Figure 1. Staying at a Minshuku (family-run guest house) in Shirakawa-go in our GPT-planned trip. We splurged on this accommodation and it was so worth it.
I’m an incessant planner so it’s hard to let go of planning an experience for some rare time off. OpenAI’s chatGPT can organize trips, tell you how to code, how to create grocery lists for recipes that fit your dietary restrictions, can even therapize you. It’s one thing to see if chatGPT can debug some code, which could waste an hour or two if it can’t; it’s another thing altogether to spend thousands of dollars and a week to see if chatGPT really can plan a trip that you find enjoyable (see Figure 1). This blog provides context for how I plan trips pre-GPT, how I planned this last trip with GPT-4, and how I plan to use GPT-o1 with future trips.
My Typical Human Process
Remember how the previous generation talked about Mapquest and buying paperback guides about how to tour an area (Lonely Planet)? I feel like I’m the Millenial version talking to the GenZ audience about trip planning; in my day, I used to Google what to do in an area and research other people’s blogs to figure out what to do in an area. For historical records, after the internet existed but before chatGPT became the stand-in search engine, I used to think of where I wanted to go (I have a list of countries that I’ve ranked by desire to go see), what time of year I had free time off, and how the intersection of country and time constrains what I want to do. I had planned a previous trip to Japan without chatGPT so here’s how I went about that process:
Figure 2: Prior research on Japanese ski packages
Where: Japan seems to be a place both my partner and I want to visit from this shared spreadsheet we use to quantify our desire to see global destinations. I’ve always wanted to go to Japan and I was geographically closer than I have ever been. My partner wanted to revisit Japan but an area that he hadn’t been to before, which includes Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. He had been to Japan before and knew that area of Japan gets a ridiculous amount of fresh snow in Hokkaido that he recommended should be the theme of our trip. I had just gotten good enough at skiing to ski up to Black Diamond’s to enjoy most ski resorts and I aspired to fill that role of snow bunny.
Figure 3: Map of Hokkaido with points of interest in light blue dots, proposed driving pat in dark blue
What: I did some Googling of ski trips and hot take, the best trip planners are professional trip planners: ski touring agencies. I made a list of all the ski packages along the metrics of Package Name, Tour Company, Trip Length, Cost, and Ski Level (see Figure 2). While researching what professionals think a great trip looks like, I realized that 1. onsens (communal hot baths) are common to pair with skiing, 2. professional ski trips typically just focus on one ski resort, and 3. ski trip packages can be pretty expensive.
How: When I go abroad, I typically like to see a lot of a country, so I try to rent a car to drive a loop around the area. I like to use Google Maps to pin destinations of interest, like ski resorts and onsen towns, then draw a loop that connects about [number of days of trip]/2 points of interest together (see Figure 3). The most my partner would have to drive in a day is 1.5 hours but the average was about an hour a day.
When: If the theme is ski trip, then the period to go would be ski season but within ski season, when would be the ideal 9 days to be there? I looked to if any festivals were in any of the towns I had in the loop and looked up the cost of flights for a roundtrip to Japan during this window. I didn’t find any overlapping festivals with cheap tickets; we just got cheap tickets.
This trip was amazing. I felt like I did such a good job planning. At the time of writing this blog, I have access to a preview of GPT o1 and I asked GPT to craft an itinerary to Hokkaido to see if GPT would get the same results I would after my 18 hours of research and planning. I received a pretty similar itinerary to the one I handcrafted, overlapping 33% of the initial destinations/activities. If I include the alternative destinations proposed in the initial response, GPT aligned with my itinerary up to 66% of the destinations/activities. That’s pretty good for 27 seconds of “thinking”.
GPT Model Version and Prompt
At the time of February 24, 2024, I was chatting with the GPT-4 architecture.
I asked: “i'd like to go to japan but off the beaten path. can you ask me some questions and help me decide where to go for a week long trip?”
GPT-4 responded: “Absolutely, I'd be happy to help you plan an off-the-beaten-path trip to Japan! Let's narrow down the options by considering a few questions:
Nature or Culture? Are you more interested in exploring Japan's natural landscapes, like mountains, forests, and hot springs, or experiencing its unique culture, traditions, and lesser-known historical sites?
Activity Level: Would you prefer a more relaxed trip with leisurely walks and sightseeing, or are you looking for more active adventures, such as hiking, cycling, or skiing?
Rural or Urban Exploration? Are you looking to escape into the countryside and explore small villages, or would you like to experience Japan's smaller cities with their own unique urban culture but without the crowds of places like Tokyo or Osaka?
Seasonal Interests: Is there a particular season during which you plan to visit? Japan's landscapes change dramatically with the seasons, from cherry blossoms in spring to autumn leaves in fall, and each season offers unique festivals and food experiences.
Culinary Interests: Are you interested in trying regional cuisines or specific types of Japanese food? Japan is known for its diverse and regional-specific foods.
Transportation Preferences: Are you comfortable renting a car to explore more remote areas, or would you prefer to stick to public transportation like trains and buses?
I responded: “i've already been to hokkaido. my trip will likely be in the fall. I want both nature and culture. I love mountains and hot springs. I would also love to see historical sites. I want every other day to involve something active and then the off days to be something relaxing. I would like to escape into the countryside and explore small villages and small cities. I love love love to eat good food. I would love to explore regional food. I am comfortable renting a car but also using public transportation”
After some iterating with GPT, we converged on this itinerary as a starting point:
Figure 4: Within 四柱神社 Shrine in Matsumoto
Figure 5: Walking down Magome-juku
Takayama:
Nature/Culture Mix: Begin your journey in Takayama, a city in the mountainous Hida region of Gifu Prefecture. Known for its well-preserved Edo period streets, it offers a mix of cultural heritage and natural beauty.
Activities: Explore the old town on foot, visit the Takayama Jinya, and enjoy the morning markets. The next day, you can take a leisurely hike or visit the Hida Folk Village to see traditional thatched-roof houses.
Culinary Delight: Try Hida beef, a local specialty that's as prized as Kobe beef.
Shirakawa-go (See Figure 1)
Relaxing Day: Drive or take a bus to the UNESCO World Heritage sites of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama. These villages are famous for their traditional gassho-zukuri farmhouses.
Culinary Exploration: Sample local dishes like soba noodles and river fish cuisine.
Gokayama
Kanazawa
Active/Relaxing Mix: Move on to Kanazawa, known for the Kenrokuen Garden, one of Japan's "three best landscape gardens". It's also a great place to experience the culture with its samurai and geisha districts.
Culinary Delight: Kanazawa is famous for its seafood, thanks to its proximity to the Sea of Japan. Don't miss the Kanazawa curry and fresh sushi.
Matsumoto (See Figure 4)
Nature/Culture Mix: Head to Matsumoto, home to one of Japan's most beautiful original castles, Matsumoto Castle. The city serves as a gateway to the Japanese Alps.
Activities: Visit the castle and the Matsumoto City Museum of Art. On the next day, go for a hike in the Alps or visit the Utsukushigahara Open-Air Museum.
Culinary Exploration: Enjoy soba noodles, which are a specialty of the region.
Kiso Valley (See Figure 5)
Relaxing Day: Spend your last day exploring the Kiso Valley, particularly the post towns of Magome and Tsumago, which are part of the historic Nakasendo trail linking Kyoto and Tokyo.
Activities: Enjoy a leisurely walk along the trail between Magome and Tsumago, taking in the beautiful countryside and visiting local tea houses.
Culinary Delight: Try the regional cuisine, such as chestnut rice or gohei mochi, a skewered rice dish.
I had to manually adjust this itinerary to account for flying into Narita so we started in Matsumoto and not Takayama (see Figure 6).
Figure 6: GPT-generated itinerary around the Japanese Alps
We bought our cheap plane tickets during the fall season (September 14 - 22). This timeframe then attached dates to each town. I pinned each of the destinations of interest in the GPT-generated itinerary, which are those light blue pins (see Figure 6). With a date and points of interest in mind, I Google Maps searched hotels near the destinations of interest with those dates in mind that fit the following criteria: walking proximity to destinations, spa (onsen), parking, high ratings, and low price.
Cost Benefit Analysis
ChatGPT Driven Planning
Shorter Time to Plan: Filling out my Japan 2024 spreadsheet took me 3 hours on February 24 and 3 hours on July 15, which is 6 hours worth of effort. The day before we left, I double-checked the itinerary and added some opening hours for attractions. ChatGPT saved me 12 hours of research.
More Well-Known Tourism: In retrospect, GPT put us on mid-tier off-the-beaten-path experiences. Some destinations were well-known tourist destinations (Shirakawa-go) but some weren’t (Gokayama). I speculate that GPT’s ability to recommend these destinations is due to the more frequent mentions online of these places, so no recommendation can really be that off the beaten path. One of our favorite stays was at a very touristy destination (Shirakawa-go) but I wouldn’t have gone without blind obedience to some other intelligence.
Low Control and Low Knowledge: I had low expectations for this trip because I didn’t plan the trip. There were some bad parts of the trip, such as longer than anticipated drives and a higher level of tourism than we would have planned for, but we’re glad to have visited these high-tourist places. Places are popular for a reason. I also really like learning about these places in person, to see them without any expectations. I felt more present in each place. However, another negative consequence is that when we found out our lodging wasn’t available, we were not as equipped to make alternative plans since I didn’t do sufficient research.
Less Good Spatial Planning: GPT-4 was not as spatially aware as I was staring at a map, but it was surprisingly aware. Sure, GPT made wrong estimates of drive time between destinations so the lesson learned is to double-check drive times.
Manual Planning
Longer Time to Plan: According to my version history, filling out my Japan 2022 spreadsheet took me from September 12 to September 24, which is 3 weekends and probably 18 hours worth of effort.
Less Known Level of Tourism: My partner and I really like off-the-beaten-path experiences, as evident from our avoidance of big cities like Tokyo and our willingness to visit local ski resorts like Asarigawa where no one spoke English. I LOVED our Hokkaido trip because the destinations did feel like we were some of the only tourists there. Given I had read about each place, I even knew how busy each place would be. My tip for planning a trip off the beaten path is to use Google Maps to search for a certain activity and of the search results, look for results that are still in Japanese and look for good ratings but not too many of them. Then use Google Translate to navigate bookings.
High Control and High Knowledge: I like to control the quality of my experience and not to brag, but I am a pretty good shot. This planning comes with some downsides, such as high expectations and anxiety to follow a certain route. At the same time, I know more about these destinations and can reroute us if something goes wrong.
Good Spatial Planning: Given that I manually select locations and driving paths, I can know and control the amount of time that we drive between destinations.
My Recommendation on GPT Trip Planning
Figure 7: A quick pit stop on the way driving to Shirakawa-go to pick up some chestnuts on the road
I think there's good to be taken out of both styles of planning that I’d like to combine into ChatGPT Augmented Planning. What I want to keep out of both styles:
Plan in Less Time but Prepare Alternatives along the Route: Boomers pay travel agents to cater experiences to the client’s taste and I think GPT did as well as what I anticipate a travel agent may be able to do. This conclusion is supported by replicating a great Hokkaido trip itinerary through GPT and by confirming a GPT-generated Japanese Alps trip itinerary was awesome. Forward and backward verification points to good planning. The pitfall of not having backup plans can easily be mitigated by asking GPT for backup plans, which o1 is providing as a part of the initial response anyway.
Vary Experiences to Include Surprises and Well-Defined Experiences: Along with the lines of planning for alternatives, I would recommend to keep pushing GPT to give a full distribution of activities in an area or to ask questions about why these activities are significant. You may find out that some activities need advanced planning, such as reservations. You can still leave some level of surprise if you want to leave some towns untouched by additional research.
Minimize Drive Time while Maximizing Diversity of Experience: GPT o1 has already incorporated drive time quantities in proposed itineraries (at least when I ask) but if that information is hidden from you, ask for drive time. You can then ask to contain drive time or transit to only include public transportation. To balance geographic proximity, I’d also recommend qualifying this request with maintaining experience diversity.
Bonus Travel Tips about Japan
Figure 8: A random soba shop on the way from Shirakawa-go to Gokayama
Figure 9: Four course dinner at the Minshuku at the rice farm we stayed at
Perhaps this type of spatially dense travel is only possible in Japan because Japan is a special place! i) Japan is an island with many small towns that maintain a strong sense of identity so you don’t need to travel far to feel that your setting is different, ii) Japanese citizens take great care in architecture and food so you can pretty much stop anywhere to exist in an aesthetic space or eat something delicious (see Figure 8), and iii) there is plenty of public transportation.
While you can take public transportation for all the places we went to suggested by GPT, renting a car cost less in time and money. The total cost of renting a car, gas, parking, and tolls was 650$ for the two of us. The total cost of public transport if we were to pay fares for two people would be 750$. We spent about 15 hours driving and we had a lot of flexibility in when we could move from place to place, stop impromptu. Public transport would take on average 1.3x or 30% more time than driving and we would have to lug our luggage through town/transfers. In retrospect, driving is a win-win for two people.
Rely on food provided by your accommodation. Food is a huge pleasure of mine when I travel and I typically mark a ton of restaurants in the vicinity that I want to go to. Don’t do this in Japan. The hotels offer breakfast buffets and minshukus breakfast sets that cater to regional specialties and because you’re eating at a buffet, you can get a little of a lot of things. Perfect if you only have a couple of meals to try everything special to that region. If you stay at a guesthouse, dinner will also be included (see Figure 9). What I love about these homemade Japanese meals is that the ingredients stress local and seasonal ingredients. I wouldn’t know how to order these kinds of dishes with these ingredients if I were to randomly enter a restaurant so I feel I got a more immersive experience with these accommodation/meal packages. We didn’t let food constrain us during the day so for lunch, we would look up a nearby restaurant to wherever we were when we got hungry that had good ratings.
Carry cash.
Japan is a very respectful, polite society. You should probably learn Japanese or travel with someone who speaks Japanese. Even knowing the language doesn’t feel like enough; I felt like I was often in the way.