Road trips & car rental: 14 real cases

Find two seven-seat rental cars far cheaper through a reseller discount with Codex searching every membership and site

Xcelerate needed two rental cars that could each carry seven people for a trip to Maine, and had memberships with Avis, Hertz, Costco and Chase's travel portal; checking every combination by hand would have taken forever. They wrote a Codex prompt in 20 minutes and let it use the browser directly. It queued any CAPTCHAs for them to solve, and a sub-agent searched Reddit for other people's ways of getting good rental deals. It found a third-party Avis reseller charging $600 with a discount code, against $1,100 cheapest from Avis directly. By those quoted prices that's about $500 less for both cars (the poster calls it a $1,000 saving), and they say they wouldn't have found it without about a week of manual searching.

Plan a six-day Oregon trip day by day with ChatGPT and Google Maps

The poster booked flights and Airbnbs, then for each day gave ChatGPT the start and end Airbnb, the kind of places they like and how much walking they were up for, and asked what to see along the route. They checked every suggestion on Google Maps, asked for hidden spots, then asked whether each day was feasible and what they'd missed, which turned up a redwood trail. Planning took about four hours; the poster says the plan worked almost perfectly without feeling rushed.

Draft a 13-day cross-country motorcycle route with Grok and ChatGPT, then catch a badly wrong route map

Planning a 13-day cross-country motorcycle ride for a year ahead, the poster asked Grok and ChatGPT for an initial route and itinerary. Grok's itinerary was 'a little wonky'; ChatGPT's schedule and route looked great. But when asked to draw a map of the route it had described, ChatGPT produced one that the poster says gets worse the more you look at it, making them question whether the itinerary itself was accurate.

Find off-the-radar stops along a 5,600 km road trip with ChatGPT o3

Planning a week-long road trip from Chicago to San Francisco via Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, the poster gave ChatGPT o3 a rough route, the things they wanted to see and questions in XML format, then refined the daily plans and switched part of the route. Asking 'is there anything to see between [x] and [y]' surfaced places they'd never heard of, including the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Dauphin Island and its car ferry, and Saguaro and Guadalupe Mountains national parks, which they count among the best parts of the trip.

Plan a parent-and-daughter road trip from the Bay Area to Texas, with a halfway stop and hotels, using Grok

A parent asked Grok on an iPhone to plan a road trip with their daughter from the Bay Area to Tesla Giga Texas, with a stop halfway and hotel recommendations; then booked the hotels and added them to the calendar. On the road they asked Grok for food and rest stops when needed. The poster says LA traffic added 7 hours to one day, and they missed the factory tour because tickets sold out.

Plan a 4-day family road trip to South Dakota with five chatbots and use the best plan

A Tom's Guide writer asked five chatbots to plan a four-day family trip from near Minneapolis to the Black Hills and Badlands, with gas and food stops, meals, lodging and under 1,400 miles in a borrowed minivan. Gemini was best at routing; ChatGPT did worst, with a broken map link and a needless night in the Badlands; Copilot was minimal; Claude was good apart from the route. DeepSeek won by basing the family in Custer State Park and planning every meal, and they followed its plan exactly, calling it a blast.

Plan a dog-friendly 7-day RV trip with short drives using ChatGPT

Planning an RV trip from Tampa with their partner and their dog, a poster asked ChatGPT for a 7-day route with no drive over 4 hours, waterfalls and short hikes, and dog-friendly stops. They also used it to check which state parks allow dogs on trails, how to connect a 30-amp RV to a 50-amp site, campfire cooking steps and campgrounds with cell service. They say it gave a day-by-day route with mileage and drive times, and dinner was saved.

Let a teenager run a California road trip itinerary with Grok and update it daily from family feedback

On a week-long drive north from Los Angeles on Highway 101, David Stevenson handed the itinerary to their daughter, who produced one with Grok within minutes and ran it through CarPlay. As the family spent longer at places they liked, the daughter kept Grok updated and it revised the plan, adapting each day to their feedback. They visited places and restaurants they'd never have found themselves, all of which were great, with manageable driving between stops.

Handle parking, road tolls and EV charging questions on a European road trip with ChatGPT and Grok

On a family road trip through Germany, Austria, Italy, Croatia and Slovenia, a poster used ChatGPT and Grok as an on-the-go assistant: planning village visits, walks and beaches, finding fairly-priced safe parking, choosing local beers and wines, and answering first-time EV road-trip questions such as where to buy national vignettes online, road taxes and trip-time estimates.

Plan a month-long family road trip with kosher meals using ChatGPT and Grok

Planning a month-long road trip for a family of seven, a poster used ChatGPT and Grok to map routes between national parks without backtracking, break long drives into kid-friendly segments, find lodging that fits, research kosher food and the kitchen kit needed for Shabbos, and create packing lists. They note it didn't understand kosher certification symbols and that it's not perfect.

Plan a summer road trip by answering questions one at a time with ChatGPT

In a Tom's Guide road-trip feature, Elton Jones shares an all-in-one prompt (written with ChatGPT's help) that has the chatbot ask about starting point, budget, trip length, travel style, food, music, routes, lodging and companions, then build an itinerary, driving schedule, budget, packing list, food stops, scenic stops and rain plans. It offers prompts only and doesn't report a finished trip.

Plan a family road trip with playground stops and a dog-friendly hotel with Grok

Jeff Binek, a gym owner in Dublin, Ohio, asked Grok to plan a two-day drive from Columbus to Hilton Head via Charlotte with three kids under four and a dog, stopping every 2.5 hours at safe playgrounds near gas stations. They say it gave precise timing and distances, gas prices, three park options per stop and a dog-friendly hotel, and the family reversed the same plan on the way home.

Book a car rental with ChatGPT Atlas agent mode

The poster asked ChatGPT Atlas in agent mode to book a car rental and says it did, shown in a short demo video.

Plan a travel itinerary with map-ready stops, food and restroom finds with Grok

An X user recommends Grok for planning travel itineraries, saying it can create a timeline, give written driving locations to plug into any map app, offer restaurant suggestions and find public toilet locations, and that it created an itinerary the poster calls amazing when asked what to do.