This AI tool can plan your next vacation
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Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
Need a little help planning your next vacation? Try asking AI for some inspiration — or even a full itinerary.
Driving the news: Travel startup Mindtrip today is unveiling "Start Anywhere," an AI-powered tool that can build a trip itinerary with as little as a single photo as a starting point.
Why it matters: Travel is booming, but actually figuring out a specific plan beyond "Portugal" or "Japan" remains a pain point for many jet-setters.
How it works: Mindtrip users can upload a photo, a URL of a travel blog, an article, or a YouTube video as a starting place.
- Start Anywhere then offers up an itinerary replete with restaurants, activities, sights and so on. Travelers can then book that itinerary as is, or use it as a jumping-off point for creating their own plan.
- The tool's recommendations can be customized based on users' preferences.
- Users can also start with a copy of their hotel or flight reservations, if they've already booked their travel or accommodations.
Zoom in: Start Anywhere combines the power of ChatGPT with Mindtrip's own data on hotels, attractions, restaurants, etc.
- The company gets a cut when its users book trips through the travel search engines and aggregators it's working with.
The intrigue: Travel writers, bloggers and influencers can sign up for the company's "Mindtrip Creator" program to generate what are essentially referral links.
- If their readers or viewers click into Mindtrip and set up an account to build an itinerary based on their content, they get a cash payment.
- That comes as many AI companies are under fire for using digital content without creators' permission.
What they're saying: Mindtrip CEO Andy Moss tells Axios that Start Anywhere's big advantage is that it combines the broad instant-response power of generative AI with the company's specific travel data — as opposed to simply using a general-use chatbot to build an itinerary.
- For example, Mindtrip is smart enough to know that a once-popular restaurant is closed, so it won't include that in an itinerary, Moss says.
- "That's where AI is heading — blending this more real-time data and the knowledge base with the conversational piece."
What's next: Mindtrip is thinking through how to make its AI assistant helpful not just when you're planning a trip, but also when you're actually abroad.
- "If I'm standing in front of a cathedral in Milan or whatever, I'm much more tied into where my GPS is and what photos I'm taking, but I still want the assistant to be there," Moss says, "because I might want to actually find something serendipitously."
