I Used AI to Prepare for an International Trip

Next week I fly to Warsaw to speak at the human-AI collaboration summit put on by Kozminski University. I'm very excited about it. I'm also a little nervous about the travel, because I've only been to Europe once for work.

So I talked the trip through with Claude, out loud, and recorded it. How I'd get from the airport. Whether my phone would work over there. What to do if I ran into someone who didn't speak English. What to pack. A Global Entry application I'd left half finished.

Some of that was information I didn't have. A lot of it was reassurance. Open questions I wanted closed so I can relax this weekend and not rush things the day before.

Getting From the Airport to the Hotel

I asked how to get from the airport to my hotel. There was Uber, and there was a train, and the thing I actually wanted to know was whether Uber works there the way it works here. It does. Same app I already have, no new account, nothing to install, and I watch for the license plate like I do at home. So that's what I'm doing.

Then two things came back that I hadn't asked about. I clear immigration in Paris, not Warsaw, because France and Poland are both in the Schengen zone, a group of European countries with open borders between them. So I get off the plane in Poland and go straight to my bag. And I land well before check-in, so the plan is to drop the bags at the hotel and go find lunch instead of standing in a lobby.

That happened over and over. I'd ask one question, get the answer, and also get the thing I would have run into an hour later.

Whether My Phone Would Just Work

I wasn't sure which plan my own phone is on. I knew it wasn't the current one, and I knew it was the one before that, and the name was slipping my mind.

So I described it exactly that way, in those words, and asked what the deal was with international service. It worked out which plan I meant, checked it, and told me I don't have to do anything different. My phone should work when I land.

Talking to People When I Don't Speak the Language

The conference is in English, but it's in Poland, and I don't speak Polish. I don't want to be rude or make things harder for the people I'm around. So I asked what people actually use now for translation assistance, because standing there messing with a phone while somebody waits on me is its own kind of rude.

Google Translate, and the setup counts as much as the choice of app. Download Polish before I fly so it works without a data connection. Conversation mode listens to both people and works out who is speaking. Camera mode is the one where you point the phone at a menu or a sign and read it in English on the screen, and that's the one I'll probably lean on.

The option that would have been effortless is out. Apple's live translation through AirPods doesn't support Polish.

Then it told me something I hadn't asked about, which is that I probably won't need much of this. Poland ranks high for English, Warsaw more so, and Kozminski runs programs in English. And it said to learn two words. Dzień dobry and dziękuję. Good day, and thank you. Opening with those and then switching to English is a small courtesy that costs me nothing. I'm not sure I have the courage to try it and embarrass myself with the pronunciation, but I appreciated the tip.

The Charger

Halfway through, I remembered I own an international charging kit from a trip to India, so I asked to be reminded to pack it.

I'm a forgetful person. I have packed nothing. I will pack at the last minute, the way I always do. But because I said it out loud in the middle of talking about something else, I'm fairly confident the reminder shows up in time.

That's a small use and I'd still put it on the list. Things surface while you're busy with something else, and you can hand them off in the moment instead of hoping you'll think of them again.

Finishing the Global Entry Application

I'd started a Global Entry application a while back and pushed it off. Global Entry is the program that gets you through customs faster on the way home.

We picked it back up in this session, and I nearly pushed it off again. The way I'd finish it is an interview at the airport on my way home, when I'll be worn out from a week away, and I wasn't sure one trip justified doing it then.

Then Claude told me it's good for five years, not one. That was the piece I had wrong, and once I knew it I stopped hesitating. So I did the application right there in the session. It's long. Claude filled in about two thirds of it and I answered the rest.

The Recording Is on YouTube

None of this is genius. It's ordinary trip logistics, the kind of thing that normally gets sorted out one item at a time over a couple of weeks, or in an airport. What I got was all of it in one sitting, before I left. Relatively little time and effort, for a significant amount of peace of mind.

Most of that session is on my YouTube channel, edited down from the raw recording. The Global Entry part isn't in it, because filling out that application put a lot of my personal information on screen. Everything else is there. Me talking it through, taking a few wrong turns, working it out as I go.

If you're curious how to use an agent to work out things like this, check out how I did it.