I Tested 7 Free AI Trip Planners — Here's What Actually Worked

"What's the best free AI trip planner?" — This question keeps showing up on Reddit, Twitter, and every travel forum. So I tested all of them.

I spent a week testing every AI trip planner I could find. Same trip parameters each time: 5 days in Tokyo, mid-budget, solo traveler, interested in food and culture. Here's what happened.

The Testing Method

For each planner, I asked for the same thing: a 5-day Tokyo itinerary for a solo traveler interested in food and culture, with a moderate budget. I evaluated each on:

• Itinerary quality: Did it generate a realistic, day-by-day plan with actual venues?
• Free tier generosity: Could I actually use it without paying?
• Unique features: Did it do anything the others didn't?
• Red flags: Did it hallucinate, paywall me, or generate generic slop?

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1. EasyTripAI — "The One That Tells You What Could Go Wrong"

Full disclosure: this is us. But here's why I'm putting us first — and it's not just bias.

Every other AI trip planner generates an itinerary and says "have fun!" EasyTripAI generates an itinerary AND then runs a Reality Check on it. It told me:

• Shibuya Crossing would be overwhelmingly crowded on my selected dates (school holiday)
• The JR Pass I was considering is no longer worth it after the 70% price hike
• My Day 3 plan had unrealistic walking times between venues
• A specific restaurant suggestion was in a known tourist trap area

No other tool flagged ANY of this. They all told me Shibuya was "must-visit" without mentioning I'd be shoulder-to-shoulder with 50,000 people.

Verdict: Best overall. The reality check feature is genuinely unique.

Free: Yes, no signup required | Try it →

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2. Wanderlog — "The Collaborative One"

Wanderlog is probably the most polished trip planning platform out there. The UI is clean, the map integration is excellent, and the collaborative features make it great for group trips.

For my Tokyo test, it generated a decent itinerary with good venue suggestions. The map view showing all my stops was genuinely useful. But here's the catch: the AI features are limited on the free tier. I kept hitting prompts to upgrade to Pro.

• Good: Beautiful UI, great map integration, collaborative planning
• Bad: AI features feel throttled on free tier
• Missing: No crowd warnings, no scam alerts, no reality check

Verdict: Best for group trips. The free tier is decent but you'll feel the Pro push.

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3. TripNotes — "The Quick One"

TripNotes is fast. I entered "5 days Tokyo" and had an itinerary in under 30 seconds. The output was clean and readable.

The problem? It was generic. The same Shibuya → Asakusa → Akihabara route that every first-timer guide suggests. No local gems, no timing optimization, no warnings. It also has limited free generations — after a few tries, you'll need to come back another day or pay.

Verdict: Fine for a quick-and-dirty itinerary. Don't expect depth.

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4. Layla AI — "The Chatbot"

Layla takes a conversational approach — you chat with an AI and it builds your trip through dialogue. I found this fun at first but frustrating when I wanted to edit specific days. It kept losing context in longer conversations.

The suggestions were reasonable but generic. It recommended the same popular spots without any nuance about timing, crowds, or budget considerations.

Verdict: Fun for inspiration, not great for serious planning.

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5. Wonderplan — "The Pretty One"

Wonderplan makes visually appealing itineraries with estimated costs. The output looks great — very shareable on social media. But the planning depth is paper-thin.

The cost estimates were often wildly inaccurate (suggesting ¥1,500 for dinner — that's about $10 and gets you convenience store food, not a restaurant meal). No timing data, no crowd info, no practical logistics.

Verdict: Instagram-worthy itineraries with the planning depth of a napkin sketch.

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6. ChatGPT — "The DIY Option"

ChatGPT is massively flexible... if you know how to prompt it. My first attempt produced a list of tourist attractions with no structure. After 30 minutes of back-and-forth prompting, I had a decent itinerary.

The big problem: hallucinations. It suggested a restaurant in Shinjuku that I couldn't find evidence of existing. It quoted JR Pass prices from 2022. It estimated walking times that Google Maps disagreed with by 15+ minutes.

ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but for trip planning, purpose-built tools are simply more efficient and more reliable.

Verdict: Maximum flexibility, maximum effort. You'll spend 30+ minutes and still need to fact-check everything.

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7. Google Gemini — "The Google One"

Gemini has the advantage of Google's data ecosystem, but it doesn't really use it for trip planning. The itinerary it generated was the most generic of the bunch — essentially a reformatted Wikipedia list of "Top Things to Do in Tokyo."

It didn't include timing, didn't consider logistics between venues, and the restaurant suggestions were all obvious. No crowd data, no cost estimates, no practical value beyond what a simple Google search would give you.

Verdict: Use it for quick destination research, not for actual trip planning.

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The Final Ranking

The Bottom Line

Most AI trip planners do the same thing: generate a list of popular attractions and call it an itinerary. The ones that stand out are the ones that go beyond the list — whether that's collaborative features (Wanderlog), conversational UI (Layla), or reality checking (EasyTripAI).

If I had to pick one tool for every trip, it'd be EasyTripAI — because it's the only one that treated me like an adult and warned me about the stuff that could actually go wrong. Every other tool told me Tokyo was amazing. EasyTripAI told me Tokyo was amazing but also showed me the JR Pass trap, the crowd warnings, and the tourist areas to avoid.

That's the difference between a trip planner and a trip auditor.