Best post on this thread.
You do not want to foster the intimacy with AI that will enable this: "If you want an interesting route fine tuned to your own wants and needs,.........."
Using AI to plan your routes. Yes or No?
- Thread starter stickywicket
- Start date
Best post on this thread.
You do not want to foster the intimacy with AI that will enable this: "If you want an interesting route fine tuned to your own wants and needs,.........."
And if you ask UKGSer?
Then you become the AI. You don't just ask one GSer, you ask hundreds and get tens of replies which you can then sort in accordance with your own preferences without getting intimate with a bot. It also helps stimulate the brain to read, digest and sort.
And if they keep the routes secret?
Touché
Is that likely? some of us will keep our secrets, of course, but not all. Within the multitude of responses gems inevitably surface, others will necessarily remain hidden.....maybe until the poster is deemed worthy
Within the limited context of an algorithm, asking a GPS device to give you a route from A to B to C, avoiding motorways is a crude form of AI. What it can’t do, is then ‘engage’ with you as it fine tunes a response. For example:
Give me a six day motorbiking holiday, starting in York at 09:00 on Wednesday. I want to ride no more than 167 miles a day, using no more than 15 miles of mototorway. I want a cafe to have lunch in at no later than 13:15 each day and a nice hotel each night. I want to arrive at the hotel no later than 17:45 and for the six days to finish in Scarborough.
I put that very question into Chat GPT, which gave me a possibly reasonable answer in around 22 seconds. Here it is:
Six-day motorcycle tour: York to Scarborough
I’d make this a scenic tour through the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District and Northumberland, finishing on the Yorkshire coast at Scarborough.
Rather than simply taking the shortest route east, I’d give you six enjoyable riding days, with a mixture of moorland roads, valleys, mountain passes, historic towns and attractive villages.
I’ll work to these limits:
- Maximum daily mileage: 167 miles.
- Motorways: ideally none; absolute maximum 15 miles.
- Lunch: arrive at a proper café by 13:15.
- Hotel: arrive by 17:45 every evening.
- Accommodation: five overnight hotel stays, assuming you finish riding on the sixth day.
- Start: York, Wednesday, 09:00.
- Finish: Scarborough on Monday afternoon.
The proposed route
| Day | Route | Approx. miles |
| Wednesday | York – Helmsley – Blakey Ridge – Whitby | 105 |
| Thursday | Whitby – Esk Valley – Stokesley – Richmond | 115 |
| Friday | Richmond – Swaledale – Buttertubs – Hawes – Wensleydale | 115 |
| Saturday | Hawes – Ribblehead – Settle – Sedbergh – Keswick | 125 |
| Sunday | Keswick – Hartside – Alston – Hexham – Alnwick | 135 |
| Monday | Alnwick – Northumberland coast – Whitby – Scarborough | 155 |
These are planning estimates, not turn-by-turn verified sat-nav distances. All six days are comfortably inside your 167-mile limit, with no motorway required.
Day-by-day itinerary
Wednesday – York to Whitby
Approx. 105 miles
09:00 Leave York.
Route:
- Sheriff Hutton
- Helmsley
- Hutton-le-Hole
- Rosedale Abbey
- Blakey Ridge
- Castleton
- Whitby
Lunch: Hutton-le-Hole, aiming for 12:15. A lovely village setting and a good place to stop before tackling the high moors.
Afternoon: enjoy Blakey Ridge and the descent towards the Esk Valley, then into Whitby.
Hotel: I’d look at the The Pheasant Hotel as an alternative if you prefer a country-house atmosphere, although it is inland of Whitby. For this itinerary, I’d favour staying in Whitby itself.
Thursday – Whitby to Richmond
Approx. 115 miles
Route:
- Whitby
- Grosmont
- Glaisdale
- Castleton
- Great Ayton
- Stokesley
- Osmotherley
- Bedale
- Richmond
Lunch: Great Ayton or Stokesley, aiming for 12:30.
Highlights:
- The Esk Valley villages.
- Views around Roseberry Topping.
- The quieter roads approaching Richmond.
Hotel: The Kings Head Hotel – a characterful historic hotel in the market square.
Friday – Richmond and the Yorkshire Dales to Hawes
Approx. 115 miles
Route:
- Richmond
- Reeth
- Muker
- Keld
- Buttertubs Pass
- Hawes
- Aysgarth
- Askrigg
- Bainbridge
- Hawes
Lunch: Penny Garth Café at approximately 12:15. This is a particularly good motorcycle stop, well known to riders. Penny Garth Cafe in Hawes +1
Afternoon: explore Wensleydale and return to Hawes.
Hotel: Stone House Hotel – a lovely country-house-style choice near Hawes.
Saturday – Hawes to Keswick
Approx. 125 miles
Route:
- Hawes
- Ribblehead Viaduct
- Horton-in-Ribblesdale
- Settle
- Ingleton
- Kirkby Lonsdale
- Sedbergh
- Kendal
- Windermere
- Keswick
Lunch: Settle, approximately 12:15. Plenty of café choices around the market square.
Afternoon: head through the southern Lake District and up towards Keswick.
Hotel: Ravenstone Manor – an attractive country hotel in a lovely setting north of Keswick.
Sunday – Keswick to Alnwick
Approx. 135 miles
Route:
- Keswick
- Penrith
- Langwathby
- Hartside Pass
- Alston
- Haydon Bridge
- Hexham
- Corbridge
- Rothbury
- Alnwick
Lunch: Alston, aiming for 12:15. A good traditional market-town stop.
Highlights:
- Hartside Pass, one of the day’s riding highlights.
- Alston, England’s highest market town.
- The historic Tyne Valley.
- The beautiful roads around Rothbury.
Hotel: The Cookie Jar – a characterful boutique hotel in a converted convent, close to Alnwick Castle.
Monday – Alnwick to Scarborough
Approx. 155 miles
Route:
- Alnwick
- Craster
- Seahouses
- Bamburgh
- Belford
- Wooler
- Rothbury
- Guisborough
- Whitby
- Scarborough
Lunch: Whitby, approximately 12:30.
Finish with the wonderful coastal and moorland scenery around Whitby and the North York Moors before arriving in Scarborough.
I would aim to reach Scarborough around 16:30–17:00, leaving a useful margin before your 17:45 deadline.
More importantly perhaps:
A. The Chat GPT response offered up pictures and links:
B. It then asked me supplementary questions and / or made comments, as it sought to help me further:
A few important points
There are two things I'd particularly recommend:
Don't rush the Dales. Buttertubs Pass and Swaledale deserve time for photographs and a coffee.
Keep the final day inland. Alnwick via Wooler, Helmsley and Pickering to Scarborough is a much more sensible mileage than trying to follow the entire Northumberland coast south to Whitby.
I'd therefore revise Monday's route to:
Alnwick – Wooler – Rothbury – Helmsley – Kirkbymoorside – Pickering – Scarborough, approximately 130–140 miles, with lunch in Helmsley.
A couple of practical qualifications: the mileage figures are provisional route-planning estimates, and café opening days and hotel availability will need checking against your actual dates. I haven't booked anything.
One question before I turn this into a final riding itinerary:
What Wednesday are you planning to leave York?
That will let me check the actual cafés, hotel availability and seasonal road conditions, rather than recommend somewhere that happens to be closed when you arrive.
Ask Chat GPT the same question yourself and then ask it of your Garmin GPS device and wait patiently for an answer.
Of course the AI can only work with what it ‘knows’, but in a sense it ‘knows’ an awful lot. It then uses a form of ‘imagination’ to build its suggestion. A wise user will (hopefully) then use their own imagination to fine tune or maybe even completely reject the suggestions made. And yes, some will attach an ‘AI’ label to all sorts of junk, just as they did with slapping the word ‘Turbo’ onto all sorts of other tat.
For what it’s worth, we regularly see questions on UKGSer (some are written as demands) for holidays far longer than six days, spanning several thousand miles, often with a lot less information given. AI (if they can be bothered to even try) will at least give them a start, surely?
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That’s not a bad little tour. I’ve ridden just about all of that and if folk don’t know the area then they could do an awful lot worse than listen to Ai.Within the limited context of an algorithm, asking a GPS device to give you a route from A to B to C, avoiding motorways is a crude form of AI. What it can’t do, is then ‘engage’ with you as it fine tunes a response. For example:
Give me a six day motorbiking holiday, starting in York at 09:00 on Wednesday. I want to ride no more than 167 miles a day, using no more than 15 miles of mototorway. I want a cafe to have lunch in at no later than 13:15 each day and a nice hotel each night. I want to arrive at the hotel no later than 17:45 and for the six days to finish in Scarborough.
I put that very question into Chat GPT, which gave me a possibly reasonable answer in around 22 seconds. Here it is:
Six-day motorcycle tour: York to Scarborough
I’d make this a scenic tour through the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District and Northumberland, finishing on the Yorkshire coast at Scarborough.
Rather than simply taking the shortest route east, I’d give you six enjoyable riding days, with a mixture of moorland roads, valleys, mountain passes, historic towns and attractive villages.
I’ll work to these limits:
- Maximum daily mileage: 167 miles.
- Motorways: ideally none; absolute maximum 15 miles.
- Lunch: arrive at a proper café by 13:15.
- Hotel: arrive by 17:45 every evening.
- Accommodation: five overnight hotel stays, assuming you finish riding on the sixth day.
- Start: York, Wednesday, 09:00.
- Finish: Scarborough on Monday afternoon.
The proposed route
Day Route Approx. miles Wednesday York – Helmsley – Blakey Ridge – Whitby 105 Thursday Whitby – Esk Valley – Stokesley – Richmond 115 Friday Richmond – Swaledale – Buttertubs – Hawes – Wensleydale 115 Saturday Hawes – Ribblehead – Settle – Sedbergh – Keswick 125 Sunday Keswick – Hartside – Alston – Hexham – Alnwick 135 Monday Alnwick – Northumberland coast – Whitby – Scarborough 155
These are planning estimates, not turn-by-turn verified sat-nav distances. All six days are comfortably inside your 167-mile limit, with no motorway required.
Day-by-day itinerary
Wednesday – York to Whitby
Approx. 105 miles
09:00 Leave York.
Route:
- Sheriff Hutton
- Helmsley
- Hutton-le-Hole
- Rosedale Abbey
- Blakey Ridge
- Castleton
- Whitby
Lunch: Hutton-le-Hole, aiming for 12:15. A lovely village setting and a good place to stop before tackling the high moors.
Afternoon: enjoy Blakey Ridge and the descent towards the Esk Valley, then into Whitby.
Hotel: I’d look at the The Pheasant Hotel as an alternative if you prefer a country-house atmosphere, although it is inland of Whitby. For this itinerary, I’d favour staying in Whitby itself.
Thursday – Whitby to Richmond
Approx. 115 miles
Route:
- Whitby
- Grosmont
- Glaisdale
- Castleton
- Great Ayton
- Stokesley
- Osmotherley
- Bedale
- Richmond
Lunch: Great Ayton or Stokesley, aiming for 12:30.
Highlights:
- The Esk Valley villages.
- Views around Roseberry Topping.
- The quieter roads approaching Richmond.
Hotel: The Kings Head Hotel – a characterful historic hotel in the market square.
Friday – Richmond and the Yorkshire Dales to Hawes
Approx. 115 miles
Route:
- Richmond
- Reeth
- Muker
- Keld
- Buttertubs Pass
- Hawes
- Aysgarth
- Askrigg
- Bainbridge
- Hawes
Lunch: Penny Garth Café at approximately 12:15. This is a particularly good motorcycle stop, well known to riders. Penny Garth Cafe in Hawes +1
Afternoon: explore Wensleydale and return to Hawes.
Hotel: Stone House Hotel – a lovely country-house-style choice near Hawes.
Saturday – Hawes to Keswick
Approx. 125 miles
Route:
- Hawes
- Ribblehead Viaduct
- Horton-in-Ribblesdale
- Settle
- Ingleton
- Kirkby Lonsdale
- Sedbergh
- Kendal
- Windermere
- Keswick
Lunch: Settle, approximately 12:15. Plenty of café choices around the market square.
Afternoon: head through the southern Lake District and up towards Keswick.
Hotel: Ravenstone Manor – an attractive country hotel in a lovely setting north of Keswick.
Sunday – Keswick to Alnwick
Approx. 135 miles
Route:
- Keswick
- Penrith
- Langwathby
- Hartside Pass
- Alston
- Haydon Bridge
- Hexham
- Corbridge
- Rothbury
- Alnwick
Lunch: Alston, aiming for 12:15. A good traditional market-town stop.
Highlights:
- Hartside Pass, one of the day’s riding highlights.
- Alston, England’s highest market town.
- The historic Tyne Valley.
- The beautiful roads around Rothbury.
Hotel: The Cookie Jar – a characterful boutique hotel in a converted convent, close to Alnwick Castle.
Monday – Alnwick to Scarborough
Approx. 155 miles
Route:
- Alnwick
- Craster
- Seahouses
- Bamburgh
- Belford
- Wooler
- Rothbury
- Guisborough
- Whitby
- Scarborough
Lunch: Whitby, approximately 12:30.
Finish with the wonderful coastal and moorland scenery around Whitby and the North York Moors before arriving in Scarborough.
I would aim to reach Scarborough around 16:30–17:00, leaving a useful margin before your 17:45 deadline.
More importantly perhaps:
A. The Chat GPT response offered up pictures and links:
View attachment 550639
B. It then asked me supplementary questions and / or made comments, as it sought to help me further:
A few important points
There are two things I'd particularly recommend:
Don't rush the Dales. Buttertubs Pass and Swaledale deserve time for photographs and a coffee.
Keep the final day inland. Alnwick via Wooler, Helmsley and Pickering to Scarborough is a much more sensible mileage than trying to follow the entire Northumberland coast south to Whitby.
I'd therefore revise Monday's route to:
Alnwick – Wooler – Rothbury – Helmsley – Kirkbymoorside – Pickering – Scarborough, approximately 130–140 miles, with lunch in Helmsley.
A couple of practical qualifications: the mileage figures are provisional route-planning estimates, and café opening days and hotel availability will need checking against your actual dates. I haven't booked anything.
One question before I turn this into a final riding itinerary:
What Wednesday are you planning to leave York?
That will let me check the actual cafés, hotel availability and seasonal road conditions, rather than recommend somewhere that happens to be closed when you arrive.
Ask Chat GPT the same question yourself and then ask it of your Garmin GPS device and wait patiently for an answer.
Of course the AI can only work with what it ‘knows’, but in a sense it ‘knows’ an awful lot. It then uses a form of ‘imagination’ to build its suggestion. A wise user will (hopefully) then use their own imagination to fine tune or maybe even completely reject the suggestions made. And yes, some will attach an ‘AI’ label to all sorts of junk, just as they did with slapping the word ‘Turbo’ onto all sorts of other tat.
For what it’s worth, we regularly see questions on UKGSer (some are written as demands) for holidays far longer than six days, spanning several thousand miles, often with a lot less information given. AI (if they can be bothered to even try) will at least give them a start, surely?
Thank you.
Is it perfect? I have no idea. Does it miss out someone’s ‘secret’ road from A to B? Very possibly. Does it include ‘Bikermate’ places? Very possibly, but evidence on UKGSer points to these being popular (or hated, depending on which way the wind is blowing at any one minute). I guess you could ask Chat GPT to exclude places popular with motorcyclists or to favour them in preference to poncy sites and sights.
Was Chat GPT quick in its neatly set out reply? Yes. Is it ‘military’ in style? Yes, but it’s arguably better than a very vague, “I think I went in 2021 and possibly took the B123… but I can’t remember” type of response that we sometimes see. Can it be worked on further? Yes, very possibly.
This should be better than ChatGPT
newroads.co
New Roads – AI Road Trip Planner for Driving Enthusiasts
Plan unforgettable journeys with AI‑powered, hyper‑personalised road trips. Discover hidden routes, real‑time visuals and community‑curated adventures.
newroads.co
£95 a year or a monthly fee.
I have just used the free ‘Try me’ offer, pumping in exactly the same request as shown in post #107. It churned out lots of subsequent questions, which I got bored answering.
I sense that it’s maybe a bit too clever for its own good. I prefer the simplicity of Chat GPT, just for playing about in.
I haven’t tried it yet. They have a tie up with Porsche Club which I how come I’m aware but I think it’s intended to be more of a holiday trip planner than a route planner, akin to the old Furkot product
