Planning a 12-day itinerary for an international honeymoon is not for the faint of heart.
So when I learned about MindTrip, an AI-powered travel planning website that promises to provide a personalized experience with photos, reviews and maps, I was hoping it would make the process easier.
After using it to plan my Australian honeymoon, I found it to be a good starting point, but there was plenty of room for improvement.
The platform helped me organize things
MindTrip created a calendar based on itinerary. Jamie Phyllis
To begin planning my trip, I opened a new chat where I was asked to “anything.”
We asked about AI chat features to create a trip to Australia and shared flight info, hotels we booked, and some activities we had already planned.
From there, MindTrip began building trips within chat. I've created itineraries, calendars and lists of bookings I've already created.
MindTrip created itinerary based on bookings I have already created. Jamie Phyllis
The travel itinerary was my favorite feature. It helped me to see all the plans listed in chronological order in one place. I've entered many plans manually, but I've added items using chat.
However, the itinerary was not updated correctly, and there were several instances that listed activity and booking details.
You could probably have created a similar itinerary with spreadsheets and Google Docs, but it was good that the website links and information about each activity, including photos, ratings, summaries, etc., were all in the same place.
Another aspect I enjoyed is that with MindTrip you can add others to your trip.
This allowed my husband to easily access the plan and make changes to the itinerary. It also helped me stay on the same page throughout my honeymoon.
I think this feature is great for people planning remote group trips, such as single trips or family vacations.
However, MindTrip was not that good at providing personalized recommendations
In addition to organizational capabilities, MindTrip is designed to provide personalized recommendations for restaurants, museums, activities, hotels and more. This does this by analyzing the quiz you send from the chat.
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However, the platform seemed to be a glitch and there were several times when quiz responses were not accessible. Otherwise, it suggested something already on my itinerary, but it turns out to be frustrating.
When the tool worked – or when I directly requested recommendations in chat, I didn't think the response was very personalized.
For example, I have recommended many of the same five restaurants over and over again, but I have missed other great options I found later in my research.
When contacted for comment, a MindTrip representative explained that the replication proposal was due to a system defect and that it may have been resolved.
The representative also said the company is “continuing to work on ways to incorporate more personalization into the chat experience, with or without a quiz.”
The platform was a useful starting point, but I don't rely on it to plan everything
Mind Trip provided a good starting point for planning your trip. kapi ng/shutterstock
I have found this platform fun and somewhat useful to use, but I think it's a starting point for planning your trip.
During the planning process, I still mentioned travel news sites about hotel recommendations, searched restaurants on Google, found influencer recommendations on Tiktok and Instagram and built the itinerary.
I think you'll need to spend a lot of time entering and completing your itinerary to use your mind trip for maximum capacity. I found Google Docs to be equally effective. There is no aesthetic advantage of MindTrip layouts.
I also think it's good that the platform has an app. This makes using your itinerary in real time much more user-friendly.
