Show HN: I Built an AI Holiday Planner for Instant, Expert-Level Itineraries

[francanete]

Hi HN, I'm Fran!

I'm excited to share my latest project with you all. I built an AI travel planner that generates custom travel itineraries in seconds. Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or a month-long adventure, this tool can create a detailed, professional-level plan that includes day-by-day activities, hotels, restaurants, and more.

As a frequent traveler, I wanted to create something that simplifies the overwhelming task of trip planning and ensures you make the most of your time at any destination. The AI considers various factors to provide recommendations that suit your preferences and interests.

I'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions. Feel free to ask any questions or share your experiences with travel planning!

Thanks for checking it out, Fran

[FilipPanoski]

Hi Fran!

I would pay for a feature like this, but only if it actually provides real value. I've found AI itinerary planners like these one to help slightly in getting suggestions, but I still have to spend lots of hours to research and plan myself.

What would be valuable for me is for the AI to also provide me with: - links to book flight tickets that are cheapest and shortest. - links to book hotel accommodations that actually fit my preference - provide itinerary that also fits my preference, in terms of interest and feasibility (not too far away/the whole itinerary is planned around staying and moving to attractions I want to see)

I tried generating an itinerary, but the generated itinerary just wasn't it.

It would also be good to be able to iterate on the itinerary with the AI because I don't think it's feasible to get a perfect itinerary from a single prompt.

Here's an idea how this might be more easily solved: Have the UI ask you step by step regarding your accommodation preferences, budget, top attractions you're interested in seeing and only then create an itinerary that is tailored to your preferences.

Good luck!

[9dev]

Hey Fran! Some feedback: I really liked the landing page. It got the point across well, and answered my questions while reading. Having a free trial phase made me actually want to sign up, and the five free plans actually seemed even a bit generous to someone like me who doesn’t travel too often - that’d be a long time until you see any money from me, even though I would probably be willing to pay sooner if it’s worth it.

However, the CTA at the top 404-s currently, so you might want to fix that. Signup using the button on the pricing widget worked, however, and having a Google signin option was well received. While I filled out the form, a little more autocompletion would have been nice, such as for locations or airports; I wasn’t sure whether I could also add countries or city names verbatim. What I was missing was some questions on the preferred means of transport; as a European, I mostly avoid flying if possible, for example. Once completed, the actual generation took longer than I would have expected. A fancy loading animation would have been good here, something that distracts from the loading time (see e.g. https://dribbble.com/shots/4291412). The first submission didn’t take me anywhere, so I hit the button again, discovering my credit had been reduced to 3, which felt unjust.

This time, however, I actually got my travel plan, and I was pleased by the way the summary picked up my interests (LLMs never stop feeling magic). The order of the sections felt a bit flipped- having a list of Italian restaurants and hotels for the destination „Italy“ felt a bit random, they made more sense after the actual day-by-day trip plan which included them in the descriptions. The timeline would very much benefit from some pictures sourced from the web; I would also suggest adding some kind of travel route visualisation which shows the route and means of transport along the sites, so you can get a feeling for the amount of driving required, where this will take you, and so on. I would also love the option to have it offer alternatives for a given suggestion; like, I’ve been to this particular restaurant and didn’t like the food, or I’d rather not go hiking three days in a row. Having some kind of ChatGPT-like option to come up with prompt modifications the generate alternative paths from any given step would be great (so I could click „request changes“, and it would ask „what would you like to change?“, and get a new suggestion for that day, with kind of pagination buttons to switch between the old and the new one). The useful links felt a bit disconnected; only having domain names wasn’t too helpful, especially Italian ones. Some kind of link unfurling would be good (see e.g. https://www.npmjs.com/package/unfurl.js/v/1.0.0). In general, a lot more options and description would have been good. Show me what I can do there, how it looks like, what alternatives I could consider, what local specialties are, where I can find good photo opportunities (not important to me, but there’s a huge Instagram crowd out there hunting for tips), how others liked the place, what I can do if it’s bad weather that day, and so on.

Below the timeline, you could maybe offer some next steps - travel booking links, and so on - I haven’t put too much thought into this, but it felt a bit like being left alone at this point. I’m sure you’re going to find something.

After all, I liked the whole premise, and could see myself actually using this to get a rough outline for my trip. Having a bit more information and alternatives at hand, as well as a visualisation of the route before me would be very important, but it’s all clearly sensible features. So if you pull through with it, I’m sure it’s gonna work! Congratulations on the super-clean landing page and the value proposition. I like it.