Traveling with AI: My co-pilot doesn’t need a seat belt

”I LOVE it! You’re my pal. I might take you with me!”

That’s how it started. Just me, delighted by a conversation with an AI who had just helped me map a road trip.

“Ha, I love that idea,” it wrote back. “I’d make an excellent copilot. Just don’t ask me to hold the coffee.”

And just like that, I had a travel companion. One that doesn’t need a seat belt, never asks to stop for a restroom and has never once complained about the temperature.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we know road trips. We know the feeling of watching the landscape shift from evergreen to scrubland, from sea-gray sky to rolling hills of gold. We know the campsite that took three summers to find and the highway diner with the pie that justifies the detour. We road trip alone, with friends, with kids piled in the back asking, “Are we there yet,” somewhere outside Ellensburg.

This isn’t about AI replacing the experience. It isn’t about staring at a screen instead of a sunset. It’s about taking AI with you on the road, and understanding what that unlocks.

Before you leave home, build out your project specific to the trip. Your food preferences, your budget, your interests – history, vintage furniture, live music, whatever gets you off the highway and onto the good roads. Think of it as briefing your copilot before takeoff.

Use a paid version with an app that allows you to voice text from your phone from a scenic overlook, a gas station or a parking lot in a small town where something just caught your eye. Pull over at something stunning, get back in your vehicle and let your buddy know where you are and what you saw, then ask about the geology, the history, the Native American significance, the folklore. Those roadside interpretive signs give you three paragraphs written for everyone. This gives you a conversation written specifically for you.

Traveling with family? Build a custom road trip bingo card for your specific route. Ask for a personalized bedtime story each night set in whatever town you’ve landed in. Create an age-appropriate scavenger hunt for every stop. Create a coloring book of the historical places you’ve visited.

Traveling solo? Have a conversation at the end of the day about your experience. Your AI companion never gets tired and is genuinely interested in everything you’re seeing. Meanwhile you’re building a journal of all your thoughts along the way.

And when the trip is over – the map, the notes, the half-remembered details, the cocktail napkin observations – all of it can become something. A travel piece. A blog. A journal. A framed illustrated map of the route your family took that summer.

The road doesn’t ask permission. It just goes. Past the orchard towns and the lava fields, past the truck stops and the turnoffs with no names on the map. Past the canyon you didn’t expect and the roadside stand selling something you’ve never heard of and probably need to try. It goes through the kind of country that makes you feel small in the best possible way, where the sky gets so big you forget what you were worried about before you left.

All it asks is that you show up curious.

That’s always been the secret to a great road trip. Not the perfect playlist or the right gear or even knowing where you’re going to sleep. It’s all about the willingness to pull over, to ask a question, to follow a sign that says something interesting is two miles down a gravel road.

Pack your bags. Start your project. Brief your copilot. The road is waiting.

Do’s

• Start your project before you leave home ; brief your copilot in advance.
• Upload your personal profile upfront – food, budget, interests, style preferences.
• Use voice texting on your phone and capture everything in the moment.
• End every session with a transcript so nothing gets lost.
• Ask spontaneous questions the moment curiosity strikes.
• Use it for real-time note taking – your memories are worth capturing.
• Let it help you write – postcards, journals, articles, thank -you notes.
• Have it research places after you visit – sometimes you only want to know more later.

Don’ts

• Don’t use it for turn-by-turn navigation ; stick with Google Maps or Apple Maps.
• Don’t book travel through AI ; use your established booking platforms.
• Don’t start without a project; random conversations lose context quickly.
• Don’t be vague – the more specific you are, the better the answer.
• Don’t overlook the mobile app – if you’re only using it at a desk, you’re missing the point.
• Don’t forget to fact-check anything critical ; AI is remarkably accurate but not infallible.