I’m scheduled to go on vacation next month, and planning the trip was becoming a gargantuan task until I thought of using Google Gemini.

Finding flights and accommodation had become quite straightforward, and I had already booked them beforehand. I was more worried about finding new things to do in a city I had already visited.

That’s when I got the idea: What if I offloaded my planning and budgeting to Gemini?

The result was quite intriguing.

Google Gemini took charge of all my planning

I saved many hours with this method

I’m visiting a city I’ve been to before, but I wanted to avoid the same spots and visit new locations. However, because of how busy my weekdays are getting, I decided to get some help from Gemini.

I gave Gemini my budget for the trip and asked it to find the best restaurants in my favorite neighborhoods, along with other activities to do in Goa, India.

I asked Gemini to ignore flight and accommodation recommendations, but Gemini can use Google Flights and accommodation aggregators to give options that fit your budget.

I was expecting some rudimentary options, but Gemini gave me results that surprised my partner and me.

At first, we weren’t too confident, but after looking into it closer, it gave us exactly what we needed.

Gemini leveraged Google Maps in many ways to give us recommendations that would have taken us hours to shortlist.

It used recent restaurant reviews, traffic, peak hours, and recent images to recommend options.

It took into consideration our food preferences and drinks within a certain budget. This saved us time scouring menus to find the right restaurant to visit and when.

The one thing I found very helpful was its focus on planning our itinerary by day, location, and weather.

You might say that’s basic, but Gemini mapped routes visually, suggested the best times to visit attractions, and suggested stops to make along the way.

To say that Gemini saved us a lot of time is an understatement.

There was one main concern my partner pointed out when we started taking Gemini’s recommendations seriously.

What if we wanted to explore hidden gems, not only the popular spots? Gemini was able to recommend spots after I tweaked the prompt, turning it into our local tour guide.

Here’s the prompt I used to start my trip planning:

I am traveling to North Goa in September. I have a budget of Rs 1,00,000 and will be eating out all day. Ignore flights and accommodations, as they are already booked. I don’t want to spend more than Rs 3,000-4,000 per meal.

I would also like to have alcoholic beverages that don’t cost more than Rs 300 per drink. Assume I will have 3–4 drinks a day. I will be there for 4 days and want you to plan and budget my outings.

I want to visit the best restaurants, hidden gems, and beach shacks, covering various cuisines, cafés, and bars. I would also like to spend one day at a beach that isn’t too crowded during the day or evening.

Plan my trip according to each day in the Anjuna, Vagator, Assagao, and Siolim areas.

While the above prompt is an excellent resource for getting started, I wasn’t satisfied with some restaurant options that Gemini gave.

I also didn’t take into account other activities we would like to do.

While eating at great restaurants was my priority, I also hoped to check out local activities and tourist attractions, which Gemini ignored.

This is when I knew I had to dig deeper, as some recommendations were repeated for each day.

Since I’ve visited Goa before, I had already been to some of these spots and knew Gemini could do better.

It was time to fine-tune my prompt.

Fine-tuning prompts in Gemini can give incredible results

Always be specific

Even though the initial results were great for someone visiting Goa for the first time, my requirements were more specific.

I asked Gemini to filter out restaurants with a 4.2 or above rating in reviews and to stick to the same neighborhoods I mentioned earlier.

I also instructed Gemini not to include any place that I’ve been to before. What’s surprising is that I never told Gemini where I’ve already been.

So Gemini used my travel history from Google Maps, which in turn saved me more time.

But something was missing. In my first prompt, I requested other activities I could do in Goa besides eating.

The initial result planned a day at the beach for me, but it wasn’t specific about other activities I could do.

So, within the same conversation, I entered a new prompt, and the final results were enough for me to set my plans in stone.

Here’s the prompt I added within the same conversation in Gemini:

I would like to visit fine dining restaurants covering cuisines such as Goan, Italian, Indian, Asian, and breakfast. Tweak the recommendation to include restaurants with a 4.2 rating or more. Do not repeat restaurants.

Add other types of activities I can do to fit the budget as well. These can be water sports, amusement parks, tourist attractions, hidden spots, and other activities.

My assumption was correct. Getting more specific with my request gave me the ideal results I wanted.

Gemini gave me recommendations for some of the top restaurants from a range of cuisines, while keeping my budget constraints in mind.

Since I requested additional information, Gemini recommended businesses that provide water sports services, tourist spots I’ve never been to, and off-beat activities like mangrove kayaking.

Since I had connected Gemini with Google Workspace and other Google apps, Gemini was also able to get my accommodation details and suggest great breakfast options near my homestay.

I have been to Goa several times before, but if it weren’t for Gemini, I would never have known about a historic spice farm, let alone visit it.

While finding all of the above information is not hard with a simple Google search or reading travel blogs, I found this process far simpler. It also let me discover new things that would never have crossed my mind.

And with my schedule, I wouldn’t know where to start.

But now that I have this conversation going, I can access it anytime from the mobile app and not have to Google every time I’m out and about.

Why I will always use Gemini for planning short trips

Even though offloading trip planning to Gemini might not be everybody’s cup of tea, it’s hard to ignore all the time I saved and the new activities I discovered.

Gemini did a great job of incorporating my preferences, where I was staying, and budget as long as my prompts were on point.

There’s no doubt that I will keep using Gemini to save time and plan future short trips.

But for more significant international trips, I might use it as a starting point and do some old-fashioned research along with it.