I was starting to doubt it would ever happen, but I finally found a regular, helpful use for AI: vanlife travel planner.
I’m not a student and I don’t code. I am, however, on day 48 of my van tour through Europe with my wife and dog. We travel without a specific itinerary, chasing the wind and sun while working our 9 to 5 jobs. AI’s mastery of travel planning has made it an unexpected but irreplaceable expert. So much so that we’ve grown increasingly dependent upon the free versions of Gemini and ChatGPT to help choose our next destination.
It all started with a simple query. Tired after a 25km hike with only a few hours left of daylight, I decided to skip the usual slog through Google search results, and opened the Gemini app on my iPhone instead. “Is there a charming village near Plitvice Lakes National Park,” is the query I typed.
Here’s Gemini’s predictably peppy response:
Absolutely! There is a particularly charming village very close to Plitvice Lakes National Park called Rastoke.
It is often described as a “fairy-tale” or “watermill village” and is frequently referred to as “Little Plitvice” because it shares a similar natural phenomenon, though on a smaller scale.
So, we took a chance and drove 20 minutes to Rastoke, Croatia, and this is what we found:
Using the same query in Google search would have led me to Rastoke, eventually, but it would have taken me longer and with more effort. First I’d have to click into the top results, which included Facebook, Tripadvisor, and a site I’d never heard of called islands.com. Next I’d have to click away cookie banners and newsletter offers, and then parse walls of text to find that recommended village. By comparison, Gemini’s result was fast, concise, confident, and text based (no spoilers!) – exactly what I wanted.
With Rastoke having exceeded our wildest expectations, we tried AI again a few days later after visiting Ravenna, Italy – a city recommended by real, actual humans using mouth words. Only this time we used ChatGPT and added a new parameter to the query since our 6-meter rig is too big for the medieval streets found inside walled villages: “Find a charming village near Ravenna with easy RV parking.”
Here’s ChatGPT’s response:
Brisighella
• This is a beautiful medieval hill village, often listed among Italy’s most-beautiful villages.
• There’s an area camper in Brisighella on Via Giuseppe Billi, ten minutes on foot from the historic center, with service.
And here’s what we found:
Brisighella, Italy, is perhaps the most beautiful village I’ve ever seen in Europe and the parking was as easy as described. And yet, somehow I had never heard of it. Thanks, AI!
Searching Google with the same prompt that yielded the Brisighella recommendation in ChatGPT produced nothing of value. The top three links started with a Tripadvisor piece titled “THE 10 BEST Ravenna Campgrounds 2025 (with Prices), an Expedia link titled “RV Campgrounds Ravenna from $90,” and something from a site called agricamper.com titled “Emilia Romagna on the road: 8 stops by motorhome and …”
AI had more than proven itself adept at quickly providing answers. But here’s the catch: AI can only produce these results because humans had previously posted about “charming,” “cute,” “quaint,” or “fairy tale villages” on the internet. When nobody has a reason to visit travel sites and blogs, they’ll die – the economic model that drove the world wide web doesn’t work without search traffic and clicks. And when the humans stop posting travel content, what will the AI models scrape to maintain relevance?
My contribution to “Google Zero” has left me conflicted.
As a founding Verge editor, my contribution to “Google Zero” – the point at which AI summaries no longer require users to click through to a website – has left me conflicted. It’s clear that in certain circumstances, AI tools can be more effective and deliver a better experience than traditional search and websites. It’s also clear that they’ll exacerbate the problems that are driving me and many others away from search. As clicks fall, websites are going to need to show more ads to make up revenue and include more pop ups demanding my email address so that I might come back. This sludge is going to make the web experience worse, which is just going to drive more people back to AI.
The other challenge here is trust. So far, the AI results we’ve gotten have been highly reliable. But stories abound about travelers ending up stranded after failing to check that AI gave them accurate information. That’s why I still cross reference those machine-generated suggestions with Google Maps and Park4Nite.
AI weather models continue to improve, so we’ve started to add weather parameters to our searches to help find spots for kitesurfing when the wind is up. Wind forecasts are notoriously unreliable more than a few days out, so we use these results as more of an indication of places we might go, while keeping an eye on our most trusted wind apps.
For this query for a place where we can kite with sunny skies and wind above 15 knots, Gemini suggested the town of Noli, offering a summary of conditions and a wind forecast, which was supremely helpful in narrowing our search of the area.
This type of response goes far beyond anything Google search can produce – even its AI Overview summaries lack weather integration. The best Google search could do was confirm that yes, people kitesurf in Noli. Gemini and ChatGPT have also proven useful at finding routes and destinations that avoid rain and snow, which again, we continue to verify with trusted sources.
Gemini and ChatGPT are now the first tools we turn to every day to help plan our travel. Neither is substantially better than the other, it’s just nice to get a second opinion – but they are both far superior to Google search results or paging through travel sites. It’s not even close. Armed with such an omniscient adviser has maximized our enjoyment, allowing us to spend less time planning and more time experiencing.
I had been dubious about AI’s ability to benefit my day-to-day life prior to using it as a travel companion. Now I’m a convert. There’s no better way that I’ve found to quickly and effortlessly give serendipity a goose in the right direction. The only question is how long it can last if there’s no one left to feed the machine.
