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We could just ship a pallet full of the things that Chrissy’s niece, Liz, had stored in her mother’s basement before she passed. But doing that would spoil the fun of renting a minivan, loading it up, and driving from Ohio to Los Angeles to spend some quality time with Liz. I also have a couple old friends in LA that I would love to see.
I thought that I might put my rudimentary knowledge of AI to use in planning the trip.
My research is not groundbreaking, still, perhaps you can tailor what I’ve done to your own situation.
ME: “Hey AI, what’s the quickest way to drive from my house to LA?”
AI: “That’s easy moron, take I-80 west to I-15 and turn left”.
ME: Well that was rude, AI.
AI: C’mon idiot, ask me something harder.
ME: Fine. Where would you recommend stopping each night, if I don’t want to drive more than 500 miles per day?
AI: That’s a little better dipwad. Giving me approximate places to bed down along the way.
The fastest way was the northern route. I have driven that way before when I moved my neighbor Kenny to Las Vegas. Except for Utah it’s kind of a boring drive.
So I asked about the central route through Colorado. It gave me similar good information, and also warned me that I could encounter snow in the highest elevations in early May.
I then asked about the southern route that would take me through New Mexico and Arizona. I have flown over the Grand Canyon, but have never seen it from the ground, so I asked AI to get me there early in the afternoon on one day, and to schedule a stop in Lake Havasu the following day. Viola, AI planned slightly longer drives early in the trip, in order to give us more time, and shorter drives on the last three days of the trip.
Making use of an ancient analogue device, also known as a Rand Macnally Road Atlas, I tweaked AI’s plan so that our stops in Missouri and Oklahoma will be just beyond the big cities of St Louis and Oklahoma City. I suspect that AI could have done that for me if I had asked, but I thought I needed to keep my pre-GPS map reading skills intact. And besides, I couldn’t take more of AI’s bullying.
Our plan is to drive a rented van to LA, and fly back home. I picked up a good website for car rentals while reading an old article from the “Spotlight” section. There’s some good stuff in the archives. Autoslash searched everywhere, including Costco and Walmart and found us a great deal on a Chrysler Pacifica minivan. https://blog.autoslash.com/
Maybe AI can help you plan some adventures as well.
Any tips you can add will be found well taken. You couldn’t be a bigger bully than AI. What does that stand for anyway? Awfully Intimidating?
Happy trails
Another helpful travel tool:
Makemydrivefun.com
It really is an amazing tool.
i spent about an hour today with chstGPT writing a song for my wife for Valentine’s Day. It is highly personalized but in line with standard country music ballads.
i gave it the initial ideas, massaged the key, timing, and instrumentation with 3-4 rounds. And I ended up with something very playable.
Then I tweaked quite a few of the lyrics to my liking, changed the title, and started practicing.
it does feel like “my song” but no telling how long it would have taken me to come up with it on my own.
You must be using Grok🤣
I just drove Virginia to San Diego and back for new years. The algorithm I used was: who can I stop in on (relatives, old freinds). The technology was the paper Rand-McNally for large scale planning and Google maps for en-route tracking. On the map you can see things like “Hey, if I go this way I can stop at Philmont” or that city named in the Route 66 Lyrics. The “Road Kill Cafe” is unique. I was often not sure where I was spending the night. Would recommend the people routing algorithm. Made it all the way west with only one hotel.
Earlier this year I ask AI to plan me a biking trip in Europe. In 5 minutes I had a complete itinerary for riding from Vienna to Budapest compete with bike rental companies, available tours, hotels and deviations to see sites along the Roman frontier. Travel agents don’t stand a chance anymore.
Nice road trip, George. Good to hear from you.
Likewise. Stay warm near “that state up north”. Enjoy the trip across. This is an amazing country full of amazing people. Sometimes we loose sight of that.
AI is a great tool, imperfect, but what source is? Generally have to question any source of info, even a map gets outdated. Took a course in how to use AI, how to improve inquiries, etc. Helped. Sometimes useful to as AI for its references/source of info to check accuracy.
AI is not for everyone. I use it as a guide, and ask the same questions to several AI sites. Overall it does a great job, but you have to be aware that it makes errors, so please check that itinerary closely. I call my AI friend George!
Last year we used AI to plot a trip in the Pacific Northwest. It suggested we stop in boring little cities. It didn’t tell us how essential as scenery and short hikes off Rt 38 in Oregon is. It didn’t provide good info on accessing Mt Ranier.
Also, it had no idea of time, that we’d want to linger at stops, maybe even sit down for a meal.
My wife with maps on her phone and a sign we saw about a salmon hatchery along the Columbia River were way better ways to direct our travel.
Be careful if you get off the interstate in St. Louis and have to ask directions. 🙂
Of course, St. Louis isn’t the only place one could get into trouble, this is a great argument for using GPS. I still know people who don’t use GPS, they are mostly the same ones that don’t make use of the back-up cameras or blind spot indicators on their new cars.
Definitely check everything AI comes up with. Gemini is supposed to be good for trip planning, so I asked it for a day by day itinerary for six days in Birmingham, UK. It put Lichfield cathedral on a Sunday, when the cathedral would be in use for services, it failed to notice that one museum was closed for renovations, and it gave no indication when somewhere was open limited hours and required reservations.
Have you considered taking the train as far as Chicago on the way back? I haven’t done that route, but I really enjoyed my trip from Chicago to San Francisco back in 2012. I’ve been thinking of doing another cross country train trip…
Good Lord, Kathy, if AI can’t keep your travel itinerary straight, how can we trust it to diagnose serious health issues? Seriously, thanks for the heads up when asking for slightly more complicated travel plans.
No train trip on this journey, but we are looking into some Amtrak trips in the future.
I used AI last year for a 2,000 mile segment of a 7,300 mile RV driving trip. It provided concise, useful information and even a side trip I hadn’t considered. I was specific about certain things such as our maximum speed, number of driving hours per day, cities to avoid, etc. I then let it plan a route, overnight stays and so on.
I did check the recommendations and did make a few alterations. In September I wrote a blog article about this, for some fellow RVers.
Since this might be the only, or last, long road trip you’ll take, an alternative drive would be to consider taking “blue highways.” The blue highways is what the Rand McNally maps would show as non-interstate, or secondary roads. There have been several books written about these kind of travels with good stories about the people in the small towns. You can also follow part way the Lewis & Clark expedition.
That reminded me of a great book I read years ago. “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat- Moon
First I’ve heard of “blue highways”, Olin. It is a cool concept. We sometimes use an option with the GPS app Waze, which provides a more scenic alternative route for motorcycles.
AI is fascinating but like anything else online these days, it’s not always accurate. I cringe at the thought of people making medical or financial decisions based on AI info. I still stand by my article from 2024 called “Ten Important Security Tips”. Lock things down with dual factor authentication, etc. I hope you have a great trip, Dan
Agreed. I have received incorrect information on the new tax law.
So you’ve discovered AI’s real purpose and the reason behind the mind-blowing trillion dollar spending…Insulting road-trippers into making better travel decisions. Safe travels, and may your AI continue its reign of helpful terror, at least it can’t judge your snack choices at rest stops. Yet.
Well, insulting road-trippers and all those hilarious talking dog and cat videos on Facebook!