Productivity · News · 🇵🇪 Peru
Tourists Follow an AI Itinerary to a Canyon That Doesn't Exist
The BBC gathers cases of travelers misled by AI itineraries, such as an invented "sacred canyon" in Peru.
- Profession
- Traveler
- Tools
- ChatGPT
- Source
- bbc.com ↗
- Country
- 🇵🇪 Peru
- Report date
- October 4, 2025
- Verified on
- October 24, 2026
What they did
Two tourists paid to reach a place invented by AI, and a couple got stranded at the top of a mountain in Japan because of a wrong schedule.
How it went
The tourists paid about US$160 to reach a rural road with no guide.
Good to know
For trails and mountains, confirm with local guides and official bodies. A wrong schedule can be dangerous.
The prompt
For each attraction in this itinerary [paste], tell me how I can verify that it exists and its current opening hours (official website, tourism board), and flag the ones you're not sure about.
Replace what is in [brackets]. Prompt written by us from the account, not a literal copy of the source. Do not paste other people’s personal data (privacy laws such as LGPD and GDPR apply).
Summary in our own words. Results as stated in the original account; we have not tested or audited them. Read the source ↗ Found a mistake?
Similar cases
01Test: can you plan an entire trip with ChatGPT?
E-Investidor asked ChatGPT for a ten-day road trip itinerary with cheaper airports and overnight stops.
02One week to find an apartment in San Francisco
A new hire used Claude and ChatGPT to list property managers and filter listings by price and area.
03Private chef and ski trip arranged during a dog walk
Paul Metcalfe gives spoken instructions and ChatGPT requests quotes, reads replies and summarizes the options.
04Agent rebooks the connection while the passenger is still in the air
With the flight delayed, the agent talked to three airlines at once and got a new route at no cost.
05Japan trip reservations, negotiated in Japanese
The agent booked all the restaurants and chatted in Japanese with the Hakone hotel to get a dinner slot not listed on the site.
06A 5-day meal plan that becomes a grocery cart
With the Instacart plugin, the author asked for a plan with no fish or pork and got the list already in the cart.
07A morning summary of school emails with ready-made replies
A mother created a Gmail label and an agent that summarizes the folder and drafts replies for her to edit.
08Booking an airport hotel with clear rules
The author limited the agent to Booking.com, used the site's own filter names and set tiebreaker criteria.