Plan a Trip in 10 Minutes with the travli Co-Pilot
Planning a trip used to mean a dozen browser tabs, a spreadsheet with color coding only you understand, and a notes app full of restaurant names with no idea which city they were in. travli puts all of that in one place, and the fastest way in is the AI Co-Pilot. Give it a destination and some dates, and in about ten minutes you can go from nothing to a day-by-day plan you would actually follow.
Here is how we do it ourselves, including the shortcuts.
Step 1: Tell it where and when
Head to Plan with AI (you will need a free account), type the destination and pick your dates. travli works out how many days and nights you are getting, and you set how many people are coming with the travelers counter. That is the whole form. Resist the urge to over-describe the trip at this point; you can steer the plan afterwards, and it is quicker to react to a draft than to write instructions for one.
If you already know the shape of the trip, a ready-made guide can be an even faster start. Every guide in The Atlas, like Rome Weekend Escape or Paris in 5 Days, has a button to use it as your itinerary. Pick a start date and it opens in your own trip, ready to change.
Step 2: Generate the first draft
Hit Generate my itinerary and the Co-Pilot (its name is Florian, and it will introduce itself) drafts the whole trip: three or four stops a day, each with a suggested time, an estimated cost and a short note on what to expect. It is a first draft, not a decree. Expect to swap a few things, and expect to keep most of it. If the first draft is way off, that usually means the dates or the destination need adjusting, not that you need to start writing the trip by hand.
A tip from experience: read the whole draft before changing anything. It is tempting to start editing day one immediately, but you will often find the museum you wanted is already on day three.
Step 3: Make it yours
This is the part that takes the most time, and it is the part that matters. A few tools make it quick:
- Drag and drop. Grab any stop and move it up or down a day, or drop it onto a different day entirely.
- Optimize Day. In the AI Trip Tools panel, select a day and the Co-Pilot reorders its stops to cut down on backtracking across town.
- Ask Co-Pilot. Inside the trip, ask for what you want in plain English: a rainy-day swap, somewhere for dinner near the last stop, a slower morning.
- Plan & Book. Add flights, hotels, dining and transport so everything lives in the same plan.
Our rule of thumb: if a day has more than four stops, it is a list, not a plan. Leave room to sit in a café and watch the city go by. That is usually what people remember.
Step 4: Keep an eye on the money
Switch on the Cost Estimator panel to see what you have planned against your budget while you edit, then open the full Budget tab when you want the detail. That is where you log expenses, mark things as booked and split costs with the people you are traveling with. We wrote a separate guide to the budget side of travel if money is the part that keeps you up at night.
Step 5: Read up before you go
Each trip has a Guide tab with the practical background for your destination: the time zone, what the weather does by season and other things you would otherwise search for at midnight before the flight. The Notes tab holds everything else, from confirmation numbers to the name of the gelato place your neighbor swore by.
The city pages in The Atlas are useful here too. The Rome travel guide, for example, covers the best time to go, how long to stay and every Rome itinerary we have.
Step 6: Lock it in and share it
When you are happy, set the trip to Finalized. That locks the plan so nothing gets dragged out of place by accident. From the Share window you can export the trip as a PDF, a standalone web page, a PowerPoint deck or even a short video, which is a surprisingly good way to get a reluctant travel partner excited. On the Globetrotter plan you can also send a read-only link that anyone can open without an account.
Three mistakes that slow everyone down
Planning every hour. The draft gives you three or four stops a day for a reason. Cities are tiring, lunch runs long and the best thing you do might be an accident. Leave the afternoon of your arrival day empty; jet lag will thank you.
Ignoring geography. Two museums on opposite sides of a city on the same morning look fine on a list and terrible on a map. Run Optimize Day on anything that feels busy, and if a day still zigzags, move one stop to another day rather than forcing it.
Booking nothing until the end. Popular things sell out: timed tickets for famous sights, the restaurant everyone recommends, the one train that leaves at a sensible hour. As soon as the plan settles, add the must-book items in Plan & Book and mark them booked in the Budget tab once they are confirmed. Your future self, standing outside a sold-out museum, will be grateful.
What ten minutes really gets you
| Time | What you do | What you have |
|---|---|---|
| Minute 1 | Destination, dates, travelers | A trip with the right number of days |
| Minutes 2 to 3 | Generate my itinerary | A full day-by-day draft with times and costs |
| Minutes 4 to 8 | Drag, Optimize Day, Ask Co-Pilot | A plan that fits how you travel |
| Minutes 9 to 10 | Cost Estimator, Plan & Book | A budget target and a place for bookings |
Ten minutes will not make every decision for you, and it should not. It gets the boring scaffolding out of the way so you can spend your energy on the fun part: arguing about whether a third day in Lisbon is too many. (It is not.)
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to plan a trip with travli?
About ten minutes for a solid first draft: tell travli where and when you are going, generate the itinerary, then drag things around until it fits how you like to travel.
Can I edit an AI-generated itinerary?
Yes. You can drag and drop stops between days, optimize a day's route and ask the Co-Pilot to swap or add things. The draft is a starting point, not a fixed plan.
Does travli show what a trip will cost?
Yes. The Cost Estimator panel shows what you have planned against your budget while you edit, and the Budget tab tracks what you actually spend.
Can I share my itinerary with friends?
Yes. Once the trip is finalized you can export it as a PDF, a web page, a PowerPoint deck or a short video, so everyone traveling has the same plan.
Try it on your next trip: open Plan with AI, enter a destination and dates, and the Co-Pilot drafts the days for you. Or start from any guide in The Atlas and make it yours.
Plan your trip with travli →