AI, Road Trips, and Imaginary Pubs: Lessons from Planning Wheatbelt Tours

When some of our family booked a stay at Mather Farm over Easter — flying in from Sydney, no less — I decided it was the perfect excuse to test how far technology could take me in planning a few day trips.

After all, nothing says "good host" like throwing your city relatives into the red dirt with a half-baked itinerary, right?

The mission? Create a set of half- and full-day trips that would show off the best of the Central Wheatbelt to people who had never set foot in it before.

The result? We got there... eventually. But not without a few hilarious lessons about where AI shines — and where it still absolutely faceplants.

What Worked Well

1. Travel times and route ideas — fast

ChatGPT smashed through the rough planning in no time. It worked out driving times and grouped attractions faster than I could make a coffee.

Travelling in the Wheatbelt involves significant distances - getting the right route can make or break how someone perceives the region

2. Rapid drafts (with some human heavy lifting)

While it was quick to generate ideas, trying to get a clean Word document out of it? Not so much. I had to do it section-by-section, then manually pull it all together. Definitely still a “DIY” job.

3. Surprisingly decent jokes

In a turn of events that gives me some hope for the robot uprising, ChatGPT has gotten much better at sneaking in a pun or two. Not quite stand-up comedy, but progress. Wok This Way is a genius pun, and celebrates one of my favourite Wheatbelt restaurants... Jimmy's Chinese. A retro blast, a cultural icon and always good vibes.

Forget the country pub, try the country Chinese food! Lazy susans, sizzle plates, BYO wine, warm customer service

What Still Needs Serious Work

1. Hallucinating attractions that don't exist

Apparently, there are pubs and lookout towers in the Wheatbelt that only exist in ChatGPT’s imagination. One pub recommended had closed down a full year ago. So much for sending the Sydney crowd on a "local secrets" adventure.

2. Repetitive, one-note suggestions

Left to its own devices, ChatGPT tends to pile up all of the same thing: every granite rock, every silo, every monolith. It doesn’t naturally create the experience mix you’d want for a memorable trip.

Without prompting, ChatGPT didn't include interesting waypoints like the Silo Art Trail that were already on our route

3. Opening hours are a gamble

Google is unreliable. Facebook ended up being the fastest way to find out if a café, gallery, or pub was actually open — or whether they were taking an extended Easter holiday.

4. Photos are still a DIY job

While I appreciate that ChatGPT doesn't swipe copyrighted images, it did mean sourcing and formatting photos for each stop by hand. Slow, but necessary.

What It Means for Tourism and Regional Travel

1. AI is fantastic for "last mile" planning

If you already know roughly where to send people, ChatGPT is brilliant for building out the details fast.

Our plans included an evening at the Wadderin Wildlife Sanctuary so we knew Narembeen needed to be our agenda

2. You can't blindly trust AI travel planners

Public LLMs (large language models) don’t know that a pub burned down or a gallery closed — only locals (and Facebook) do. You still need a human in the mix.

3. Sell the best, not the everything

Destination marketing needs to resist the urge to list every single rock. People want standout experiences, not a three-hour hunt for "Australia’s 17th biggest pebble."

Not all Wheatbelt monoliths are created equal - and my recommendations vary depending on how mobile each group is.

4. Prepare travellers for the realities of regional trips

The gaps between towns are part of the charm — but visitors need to be ready. Teach them about overtaking road trains, planning fuel stops, and adjusting expectations: "open 7 days" sometimes means “open if Bev feels like it.” IG vibes don't explain how to travel in the Wheatbelt.

Picnics are a great way to enjoy the wide open spaces of the Wheatbelt without worrying about whether you'll make it back before the kitchen shuts at the local pub

Final Thoughts (And a Chiweenie Cameo)

Overall, using ChatGPT to plan Easter trips for family was faster and funnier than doing it all manually — but it still needed plenty of local knowledge, double-checking, and a bit of creative triage.

And because no trip is complete without a mascot... here’s our resident chiweenie at Mather Farm, desperately trying to convince the visitors she should be allowed on every road trip.

You can see the final itineraries we created here:👉 View the Central Wheatbelt Itineraries