Trips by Tripadvisor

Trips by Tripadvisor is the travel giant’s AI itinerary builder, launched in 2023 using OpenAI’s models and folded into the main Tripadvisor app and website. You answer a few questions — destination, dates, who’s traveling, and interests like food, museums, or nightlife — and it assembles a day-by-day plan with specific hotels, restaurants, and attractions.

The pitch against ChatGPT or Gemini for trip planning is grounding. Generic chatbots occasionally recommend restaurants that closed years ago or invent opening hours. Tripadvisor’s planner draws from its own database of over a billion reviews and hundreds of millions of listed places, so every suggestion is a real, currently listed business with ratings, photos, and recent traveler feedback one tap away. Attractions link to Viator (Tripadvisor’s tours marketplace) and restaurants to TheFork for reservations, which is also how the free tool pays for itself.

Compared with venture-backed AI planners like Mindtrip, Layla, or Wonderplan, Trips is less of a chat experience and more of a structured generator: fill in preferences, get an itinerary, then edit it. The saved trip lives alongside Tripadvisor’s older manual trip-planning features, so you can bolt on places you find while browsing reviews normally.

Key Features

• Day-by-day itinerary generated from destination, dates, party type, and interests
• Every recommendation backed by live Tripadvisor listings and review scores
• One-tap access to reviews, photos, maps, and prices for each stop
• Editable results — reorder days, remove stops, and add your own saves
• Booking links via Viator for tours and TheFork for restaurants
• Syncs across the Tripadvisor app and web, shareable with travel companions

Pricing

• Free: The AI planner, saving, editing, and sharing cost nothing. Tripadvisor monetizes through booking commissions instead of subscriptions.

Best For

Travelers facing a blank page — a first trip to Tokyo, a long weekend in Lisbon — who want a credible skeleton itinerary in two minutes rather than twenty browser tabs. Also handy for casual planners who already live in Tripadvisor for reviews.

Limitations

The itineraries skew mainstream: expect the Eiffel Tower and the top-ten list, not the neighborhood wine bar a local would name. Off-grid destinations with thin review coverage produce sparse plans, and travelers who want a back-and-forth conversation to refine details will get more from Mindtrip or a general chatbot.