Reporting and photography by Dawn Gilbertson
SALTBURN-BY-THE-SEA, England -- The bickering started before we left London.
My travel companion, who planned the entire seaside getaway, directed us to the wrong train at London's King's Cross station. If I hadn't double-checked the tickets, we would have missed the 9:33 a.m. departure. There was another mix-up at the connecting train station. My partner was remorseful.
"I have clearly been having a bit of a nightmare this morning. I am sorry."
Apologies are swift when your travel companion/planner is an AI chatbot. Google's Gemini, not some ruggedly handsome Englishman, was my partner on this trip.
With all the hype around artificial-intelligence travel planning, I wanted to craft a trip from start to finish with no research beyond AI. No friend recommendations, travel agent, Reddit or Facebook queries. And I wanted to do it in a region I knew nothing about.
So my Gemini prompt went something like this ahead of a business trip to London: Find me a two-night seaside getaway from London in mid-March. No tourist traps, Instagram hot spots or luxury hotels.
Saltburn-by-the-Sea (no relation to the dark comedy) was one of the first recommendations. Gemini's price-to-beauty ratio sold this beach lover: "You get views that rival the Amalfi Coast (in a rugged, Northern way) for a fraction of the price of a weekend in Cornwall or the Cotswolds."
I had to look up Saltburn on a map. The Victorian-era town with dramatic cliffs is on the windswept northeast coast and was developed as a resort by a Quaker mining and railroad magnate in 1861. Few colleagues in our London office had heard of it.
My editor had one rule: I had to strictly follow Gemini's itinerary to size up the hits and misses. I will say it's the most organized I've been before a trip, and it was nice to have someone else do the planning. But next time I'll check Gemini's references and do some additional legwork.
The first miss in town was a doozy. Gemini told me to walk from the tiny train station to my hotel, a seven- to 10-minute trip.
It was raining and brutally windy, and I nearly slid down a hill with my suitcase. Cars were whizzing by, so I had to stop every few feet. When I shared the slippery walk in the family group chat, my daughter quipped: "Pretty place to die at least?!"
I told Gemini it should have recommended a taxi. It apologized again, with the funniest line of our relationship. "You are absolutely right...The last thing you needed was to be a human sail on a cliff edge."
All was forgiven when I settled in for lunch (which Gemini forgot to budget time for) at The Spa Hotel and was treated to dramatic cliff and sea views.
Not to mention Parmo, a fat-laden breaded chicken dish that is a local specialty. The Gemini recommendation, seconded by the restaurant manager, was the comfort food I craved in the lousy weather.
Dinner was supposed to be crab brioche at a seafood restaurant mentioned on the BBC show "Remarkable Places to Eat." The itinerary time: 7:30 p.m. Gemini neglected to mention the restaurant's winter hours; it closed at 3 p.m. that day. (I only discovered this when I checked the website.)
Gemini then suggested The Ship Inn's Thursday steak special or fish and chips. I went for the latter. I had much better on the trip (on the last day at the aforementioned seafood restaurant). But the pub trivia night was fun, even though I bombed with British topics.
My only full day in Saltburn was supposed to start with a hearty hike along the cliffs. I almost didn't go. One of my new pub friends, who swims in the chilly North Sea every day with a group of women called the Saltburn Mermates, said the conditions might be too treacherous with 40 mph gusts and mud from the rains. Gemini said it was OK to sleep in.
The sun came out, and I decided to go for it. It was the highlight of my AI trip despite brutal winds and cold. I had the trails to myself for two hours, minus a few minutes with a man and his dog, and logged 13,500 steps.
I felt like I was an extra in a BritBox drama and I couldn't stop taking photos despite my numb fingers.
After a long, hot bath, Gemini sent me to the Land of Iron museum in a neighboring town to learn about the area's ironstone mining days and take a mine tour. (A local journalist came up with the idea for the museum.)
My agenda that night, like everything else, was set before the trip. But Gemini seems to have short-term memory lapses and kept suggesting other places to try. So I had to go back in the thread or to my screenshots to see what was next.
There were pubs before and after dinner and a chic pizza place sandwiched in between. I met more lovely locals and their dogs at almost every stop.
I strayed a little from the agenda on my last morning with a dip in the North Sea (water temperature 44 degrees Fahrenheit) followed by sessions in a mobile sauna. I spied it on my beach walk the day before. I asked Gemini why it didn't recommend this and it called it a "massive oversight" of the ultimate Saltburn experience.
I still managed to squeeze in everything else Gemini recommended: the Saturday Farmer's Market (I tried the recommended Scotch eggs and wasn't a fan), takeout fish and chips from the restaurant that was closed the first night and a goodbye drink near the train station.
The trip back to London was long and anything but smooth. Gemini didn't warn me about weekend engineering work until it was too late.
Would I take a Jim-and-I trip again, as one Saltburn resident cheekily called my AI adventure? Absolutely, if it sent me to a charming, far-flung gem like Saltburn, without sounding like a sponsored ad.
I just wouldn't rely on it for real-time information and would double-check its recommendations. Most of all, I'd leave room in the itinerary for on-the-spot finds.
I'd never heard of a Parmo before this trip. I also didn't know what a Dryrobe was until I saw every sensible swimmer come out of the North Sea and throw one on to stay warm. AI chatbots don't get cold, but I do.
Write to Dawn Gilbertson at dawn.gilbertson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 24, 2026 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments