I’m old enough to remember the days when you’d fly into a foreign city with a wallet full of traveller’s cheques, and hope like hell you would sign them accurately enough for the bank teller to believe you were the rightful owner. In my bag was, surely, a paper guidebook. When it was time to call home, I’d whip out an international calling card with an arcane series of codes required to get a call to connect.
Thank heavens technology has come along to smooth the way. Google Maps replaces those folded-up sheets from the tourist office, while a few taps on your mobile can swap PayPal cash for train tickets across Europe. Nice. It’s the wafer-thin end of a technological wedge that is transforming every aspect of how we travel.
And when it comes to travel tech there is no buzzier buzzword right now than AI. But a word of caution: trust the language models at your own risk. While they can be a useful tool for research and inspiration, they’re not always as accurate as needed. I certainly wouldn’t rely on one to curate the perfect trip for me, but where they are proving handy is to mine the data from real-life — and more reliable — operators.
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