Jet-Setting with Prompts
Early this year I was planning on taking my nephew on his first international trip. I knew this would be a trip of a lifetime for him and didn't want to miss a thing but how on earth do I come up with all of the details for that. Mix in the various constraints I had to take into account and I had a steep hill to climb when it comes to trip planning. Generative AI stepped up to help me come up with ideas and to sort out the details. By the time I was done I had a detailed itinerary that covered our whole trip from Rome to Venice.
I'm going to teach you about a few prompt engineering concepts using what I learned while planning that trip. In this tutorial we will cover
The process here might feel laborious at first, but this iterative approach is key to getting the most out of ChatGPT.
What is an itinerary anyways?
One of the first things to do when building a prompt for a subject you're not familiar with is to ask ChatGPT itself what to include. For this example let's do the following prompt:
You are a professional travel agent. What would you include in an itinerary report to make sure that it is comprehensive but flexible? We are going to be building this using ChatGPT so include example prompts to help.
This will output not only the details you should eventually have in your itinerary but also a sample itinerary. Using this response, we can start to put together a series of prompts to determine what work we need to do to make the most use of ChatGPT.
Run that prompt above a few times to see what different outputs you get. Inconsistency in ChatGPT results is a curse for software development, but a blessing for creative projects like this one. You can even build this into your prompt by asking it to give you multiple options at once. Try adding "Give me at least three perspectives on what makes a comprehensive itinerary". Doing that in my case gave me three takes on what an itinerary can look like including one focused on just logistics. Use these insights to understand what you want for your trip planning. Your final product will look the best if you give ChatGPT your specific preferences.
Turn the Tables
A different means of brainstorming with ChatGPT is to have it interview you. This is called a reverse prompt. Using the prompt below, we can get started.
Assume that you are a professional travel agent specializing in trips to Italy. Here's what I know so far about my trip:
- There will be two adults requiring two separate rooms
- We want to keep the trip to just Italy
- We want the budget to be about $2500 per person excluding airfare
- One person is allergic to wheat and the other does not like seafood
- We'd like the length of the trip to be around two weeks.
Now ask me questions one-at-a-time to help build up a trip itinerary that includes where we will stay, transportation options, where we will eat, and what we will see. I need a series of options for itineraries. When you are finished asking questions, show the itinerary options including approximate budget for each item in the itinerary.
That prompt gives it all the details I already have so we can skip questions related to that. I also specify what I want in the output.
Right away I'm presented with one question at a time with examples to help it build an itinerary. Answer these questions as naturally as you would with a person sitting in front of you. You can also stop and ask it a clarifying question. It asked what walking tours I was interested but was able to pause the flow and ask back "Can you give me more examples of guided tours?"
Once you've answered all of its questions, it will give you your sample itinerary. The fun doesn't end there though. Ask it for other itinerary options. It should come back with a few other itineraries. For me, that wasn't useful enough so I followed up with asking it to summarize the differences between those options. Let's explore some of the follow up options in the next section.
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A Refined Taste
When traveling to unfamiliar destinations, you'll want to make sure that everyone's specific needs can be met and that you are prepared for whatever may come up. To start, let's ask ChatGPT in the same itinerary thread "What are some menu options for each restaurant that meet my dietary restrictions?" This sort of shows the power of ChatGPT's memory
Delve into what can be done through follow-up questions. This was made possible by being specific in the initial prompt. If you didn't provide those details, you can always add them to that prompt as a bullet point list at the bottom. It will also give you links to the menus themselves so you can verify the results. For something this sensitive, I always recommend a follow-up question to see how it came up with the results. For this example, let's use "How did you verify that those menu options meet the dietary restrictions?" This will show that it reviewed the restaurant menus but gives you a chance to ask it to confirm those requirements.
Here there be Dragons
A good strategy with prompts is to ask it a negative question like "When is the worst time of year to travel given the above itinerary?" Contrarian questions like that force ChatGPT to re-justify its past responses. If any of the above questions don't come with reference links, ask ChatGPT "What is this based on?" to force it to review and reveal its sources. Remember that ChatGPT is not perfect and it is up to you to verify the response.
Another type of contrarian planning is asking ChatGPT for resources you can use if you run into an emergency. Try asking it "What are the nearest emergency rooms and American consulates to the locations I'll be at?" It will happily give you a list of the nearest hospitals and consulates to where it says you will be according to your itinerary. This is vital information for any traveler to have and is a great example of how the contextual awareness of ChatGPT can greatly benefit your work.
Get creative with the contrarian and edge-case prompts. If you are a hopeless optimist and can't think of any, just ask ChatGPT what it thinks would be some good prompts to explore that topic: "List out 12 contrarian and edge-case prompts I could use to flesh out my itinerary." Be sure to always include a count of how many responses you want otherwise it will get lazy.
Latest and Greatest
A great strength of ChatGPT is its ability to reach out to active and current websites to summarize up-to-date information for you. It can reach out to sites to get reviews, the weather, headlines, government information websites, and more. These sources can add a lot of color to an otherwise bland itinerary. Rather than just a name of a hotel, why don't you get a summary of the reviews for it? "For the hotels recommended in the itinerary, give me a summary of the latest reviews for them on TripAdvisor." And there you go, a paragraph summary of the reviews on each hotel. Keep in mind, ChatGPT can be an optimist and will give you some of the more glowing reviews. Building on the last section, let's see what might be wrong with those hotels: "Give me a summary of the negative reviews of those hotels." Well, looks like my light-sleeping self is going to need to find a different hotel in Rome.
A fun but super important one if you're traveling to Italy: "Are there any recent news reports about transportation strikes in the places in my itinerary?" ChatGPT will helpfully use its list of news sources and ability to translate on the fly to find all the strikes that might get in the way of your travels.
Bon Voyage
Mastering prompt engineering with tools like ChatGPT can significantly enhance your ability to plan detailed and personalized itineraries, ensuring that no detail is overlooked. These skills in prompt engineering can easily be applied across your daily activities (both professional and personal). By leveraging the power of generative AI, you can brainstorm creative ideas, integrate essential online resources, manage your budget effectively, and tailor the outputs to meet your specific needs. This approach not only streamlines the planning process but also opens up a world of possibilities for creating memorable travel experiences. As you continue to refine your prompt engineering skills, you’ll find that the iterative process becomes second nature, enabling you to tackle even the most complex planning challenges with confidence. Just keep asking questions of ChatGPT and you'll be amazed how much information you can gather quickly.
Stay tuned for our future articles, where we’ll delve into exporting your itinerary into practical formats and preparing for your journey with customized checklists and maps. Happy travels!