I’m The Worst At Planning Trips, So I Made AI My Travel Agent

It’s just after sunrise in Seoul, and my eyes are glued to the window of a taxi as I’m driven through the heart of South Korea’s capital. Even in the early hours of the morning, the city’s busy streets, packed with flashing digital billboards on every corner and lined with sleek high-rise buildings, almost come as a shock against the mountainous areas that surround it.

I’m fresh off a 15-hour flight, on my way to the Gyeongbokgung Palace in northern Seoul, a historic palace built during the Joseon dynasty and one of a few major landmarks I’m hoping to explore during my five-day work trip. Typically, I’d be overwhelmed while scrolling through endless variations of “amazing things to do in Seoul” articles. I’d panic while trying to map out how to soak up all this city has to offer in my 48 hours of free time.

Now, though, I’m surprisingly calm. Days before this, I mapped out my brief Seoul itinerary with the help of AI.

Much of my time here will be spent just outside of Seoul in the smaller town of Suwon, home to Samsung’s sprawling campus of 300-plus buildings, most of which are the kind of sleek, angular structures you’d expect to see in a place nicknamed “Digital City,” but not necessarily in a country steeped in centuries of history and tradition. But such is the norm in a place where centuries-old architecture and storied neighborhoods coexist with touchscreens and robots that serve you coffee — a perpetual reminder of the richness of the past and the vast possibilities of the future.

I’ve been invited here by Samsung as the tech giant unveils Galaxy AI, a host of artificial intelligence capabilities related to internet searching, photo editing, and more across its line of Galaxy products. The rollout comes amid a time in which public opinion about AI has grown increasingly mixed, a reputation Samsung hopes to change.

In a perfect world, I’d distill weeks of Seoul research into bite-sized cells on an Excel spreadsheet housing the most efficient two-day itinerary you’ve ever seen. My reality is oxymoronically not so. As an operations professional, such meticulous project planning takes up a majority of my waking hours. So much time spent flexing those muscles means that the thought of planning anything outside of my job makes me want to throw up. Enter: Galaxy AI.

Planning A Two-Day Seoul, South Korea Itinerary Using AI

At an impasse of my own creation, Galaxy AI on my Galaxy S24 Ultra phone was my Hail Mary. I started by doing what any self-respecting person about to go on a trip would do and searched on the Samsung Internet app for “things to do in Seoul, South Korea.” When opening each link on the first page of results, I clicked on Galaxy AI’s three-star icon on the menu bar, which condensed thousand-word articles into a few bullet points of recommendations, many of which I ended up adding to my itinerary.

I always gravitate toward more photogenic attractions, so I switched over to a Google image search and began using Galaxy AI’s “circle to search” function. I started with a few prompts like “prettiest places to see in Seoul” or “best restaurants in Seoul.” Once I saw an image I was curious about, I long-pressed the S24 Ultra’s home button and circled that image, prompting AI to analyze what I’d circled and deliver a pop-up Google search window with curated results about it. In about 15 minutes, I created another short list of food, shopping, and attraction recommendations based on the coolest-looking places.

I manually plopped my final locations on a map to get a sense of proximity and travel times, and after a little more research into opening and closing hours, I had the perfect kind of plan: firm enough to keep me on track but cushioned with enough time for spontaneity and aimless wandering. Here’s how it went:

Day 1

Gyeongbokgung Palace

After dropping off my luggage at the Shilla Stay Seocho hotel, I walked through a set of gates leading to the sprawling, 629-year-old Gyeongbokgung Palace, the main royal palace for Korea’s last-ruling Joseon dynasty. Two towering sets of stairs lead to the palace’s main grounds, where ornate buildings with resting-hill roofs and surrounding ponds spread out as far as the eye can see, backdropped by the colossal Bugaksan Mountain. I spent a little over an hour wandering along the walkways, taking in idyllic scenes of visitors wearing traditional Korean hanbok — a word I learned using circle-to-search over an image of someone wearing one — and weaving in and out of pagoda-style architecture.

Bukchon Hanok Village

The area surrounding the palace is home to the Bukchon Hanok Village, a small maze of streets lined with restored, Joseon-era Korean houses. I wandered up and down the many hills of this residential neighborhood, following the flow of foot traffic toward the village’s highest point until I reached the Bukchon Observatory, a small cafe with a selection of teas; rooms displaying a wealth of traditional tea pots, art, and sculptures; and ample outdoor seating overlooking lush gardens and the entire village.

Seoul Tower

A 15-minute taxi ride brought me to the base of Seoul Tower, the thin, pointy structure in the distance of nearly every image I’d seen of the city’s skyline. Following a short ride in a cable car that took me over the tower’s surrounding Namsan Park, I walked out onto the plaza directly at the foot of the tower, soaking in the breathtaking 360-degree views of the massive city below me, which disappears into the hills and mountains in the far distance. I snapped no fewer than 200 photos of the different panoramic views before heading into The Place for lunch with a view.

Between courses of carbonara and truffle striploin steak, I touched up a few of my favorite pictures using Galaxy AI’s editing tools, like removing people and stray objects from photos and automatic image enhancements. The results almost made it seem like I had all of Seoul to myself.

Statue Of Gangnam Style

After a brief return to the hotel to check into my room and freshen up — a 15-hour flight looks good on no one — I admittedly fell asleep almost immediately, and the remainder of the day’s itinerary had to wait until the next evening, though I could’ve tackled it had I woken up to one of the three alarms I’d set. So the next evening, I ventured back out in search of a nearby tourist trap to end all tourist traps: the Statue of Gangnam Style.

I got a bit lost leaving the hotel and had a difficult time deciphering Korean street names on my phone’s map, so I stepped into a tiny coffee shop to ask for directions. At this moment, the Galaxy AI live interpreter function was a lifesaver. Pulling up the app, I set the input and output languages to English and Korean, respectively, tapped the microphone icon, and started speaking into my phone. Immediately, what I’d just asked was audibly translated to Korean. With a second tap of the microphone icon, I had the shop cashier’s directions in English and was on my way.

I finally spotted the huge bronze statue of two hands crossed at the wrists, built in 2016 to commemorate Psy’s 2012 smash K-pop hit “Gangnam Style,” which became the first-ever video to hit 1 billion streams on YouTube. Yes, the song played on a loop near the statue. Yes, there was a line to take a photo in front of the hands. Yes, I waited in that line with zero regrets.

Starfield Coex Mall

Mere steps away from the Gangnam Style statue, I finished off the day at Seoul’s Starfield Coex Mall, a gigantic underground shopping center housing everything from an aquarium to a movie theater. I window-shopped like it was my job, leaving no corridor unexplored and marveling at the many art installations within the walkways.

I spent the most time in two places, the first being Starfield Library. Mouth wide open in awe, I took endless photos of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that span the entire two stories. The second was Olive Young, a popular South Korean health and beauty store. Piling my basket high with skin care brands I know and love and new skin care products I investigated using circle-to-search, I left the mall with 277,368 fewer South Korean wones ($200) than when I entered, but armed with enough snail mucin to hydrate my skin for the next five years.

Day 2

Seoul Forest

I kicked off my final day in Seoul with an Uber ride to Seoul Forest, a 3,000-acre park with sculptures, endless trails, and more. I followed signs leading me to the deer corral deep within the park, in which spotted sika deer roamed about a large enclosure. Admittedly, I ate up most of my time for the day here because I couldn’t peel my eyes away from them and promptly video chatted with my mom to show her the view.

Eventually, I kept walking back through the forest and happened upon a butterfly garden, a serene indoor oasis filled with bushes of blooming flowers, trees, and a small waterfall and pond. Butterflies big and small darted to and from the blooms, and I snapped ultra zoomed-in photos as quickly as I could. I made a mental note to circle-to-search them all later.

Better Than Yours Coffee

From the park, I walked deeper into the Seongsu-dong neighborhood, which many people have dubbed “the Brooklyn of Seoul,” in search of the infamous Better Than Yours Coffee, which won a Red Dot Design Award in 2023 for its innovative retail experience, in which two white robotic arms make and serve coffee through a window.

My phone’s live interpreter function came in handy once again, as did two very kind café patrons who helped me order an iced coffee via the shop’s app, which was all in Korean with no translation option. After ordering, the white, metal arm of the robot got to work, moving around and pouring ingredients into my cup with surprising precision. Minutes later, my coffee was finished, and perhaps I was swayed by the technological marvel I’d just witnessed, but I thought it was delicious.

Itaewon Market

My last stop before returning to my hotel was Itaewon Market in the Itaewon neighborhood, an area known for its nightlife and trendy, multicultural eateries. I was barely out of the car before I was taken by the most intoxicating smells of Korean fried chicken and pad thai that distracted me from even pulling my phone out for a single photo. I peered into each of the tiny restaurants crowding the long Itaewon-ro street before deciding on the half-moon-shaped, grilled dumplings from Jonny Dumpling; each bite was better than the last.

As a final activity, I popped into a few souvenir shops to get gifts for loved ones who aren’t as excited about snail mucin as I am. Afterward, I slid into a taxi reluctantly, itching for more time in Seoul, but knowing I’ll be back. If there’s one thing I learned from using AI to help plan an adventure, it’s that I want to keep doing it.