I started noticing it in Spain. Every app I opened — from booking a bed to ordering lunch — suddenly had a new tagline: “Now powered by AI!”
It sounded promising… until it wasn’t.
I was trying to find a place to stay in Valencia. My favorite app had a new “smart” assistant that asked me how I felt about travel. Not where I wanted to go, or how much I wanted to spend — just how I felt. I said “tired.” It showed me a yoga retreat 40 minutes outside the city with no public transport. Thanks, genius.
That was only the beginning.
By the time I made it to Croatia, I was drowning in “AI-powered” everything. Translation apps that tried to auto-complete full conversations. Route planners that insisted I walk through construction zones because the “algorithm had improved.” I used one local food app that gave me a restaurant recommendation with a perfect rating… only to arrive and discover it had shut down six months ago. The only thing still functioning was the neon sign.
Look — I get the hype. I really do. Artificial intelligence sounds exciting, especially when you’re pitching a product or trying to stand out. But when you’re actually on the road, sweaty and lost with 4% battery and a cracked screen, all you want is for the thing to work. You don’t care how “intelligent” it is if it can’t even load the damn map.
I miss the old days when travel tools just… did what they were supposed to.
I didn’t need an app to guess my mood. I just needed it to tell me which train left first.
I didn’t need “AI-curated cultural hotspots.” I just needed a restaurant that was open and served food I could pronounce.
In Albania, I stayed in a guesthouse run by a couple who didn’t speak English. No apps, no digital anything — just a notebook with guest names, and hand-drawn directions to the beach. That experience was more efficient (and memorable) than half the “AI-driven” platforms I’ve used this year.
You know what’s funny? The simpler the tool, the more I trust it. A sticky note with a breakfast menu has never lied to me. A printed map in a hostel hallway has never frozen or crashed. A human saying “this is the best coffee in town” has always beaten a five-star AI review.
So no, AI isn’t saving your product. In most cases, it’s just dressing up something mediocre and hoping the buzzword makes us forget the flaws.
I don’t hate tech. I just hate when it gets in the way.
Give me fewer features and more function. Fewer predictions and more precision. I’d trade your smart itinerary builder for a working offline mode any day.
Here’s a tip from someone actually out there using your app, while standing in a foreign metro station, juggling a backpack, a water bottle, and a cracked phone:
Don’t build for what sounds cool in a funding meeting.
Build for the girl who’s about to miss her ferry because your interface lagged.
Build for the guy trying to find a toilet in a market with no signs.
Build for the actual traveler — not the imaginary tech investor.
So yeah. Keep writing “AI-powered” in bold letters if it makes you feel futuristic.
But if your app can’t do the basics — book, guide, translate, inform —
Then all that intelligence doesn’t mean a thing.
Give me something dumb and reliable over smart and broken, any day of the week.
And I say that with love — from a cracked café chair in Montenegro, with no charger, and just enough signal to hit “submit.”