Overview

Caravan is an AI-powered travel itinerary planner designed to simplify the complexity of trip planning by acting as a personalised travel companion. Planning a trip often involves navigating through countless sources of information, comparing destinations, managing preferences, and making decisions around time, budget, and experiences. The idea originated from a simple observation: everyone wants the convenience of having a well-travelled friend who can recommend where to go, what to explore, where to stay, and how to make the most of a trip. Caravan leverages AI to understand user preferences and curate personalised itineraries based on individual requirements within seconds.

Understanding the Travel Decision Journey

The primary UX challenge was transforming a traditionally research-heavy process into a simple and intuitive experience. Travel decisions involve multiple stages, from initial inspiration and information gathering to comparing options, making bookings, and experiencing the journey. Through user journey mapping and analysis of travel behaviour, I identified key friction points where users struggle with information overload and decision fatigue. Caravan was designed to support users throughout this journey by reducing complexity and enabling faster, more confident travel decisions.

Creating Personalised AI-Powered Itineraries

The experience begins by understanding the traveller’s interests, destination preferences, travel duration, group composition, and priorities. Based on these inputs, AI generates a personalised itinerary tailored to the user's requirements. Users can preview, modify, and customise their generated itinerary, giving them flexibility and control over their travel plans. The system balances multiple factors such as cost, time, activities, and sustainability considerations to create a plan that aligns with individual preferences.

Making Sustainable Choices More Accessible

During the initial exploration, carbon footprint was considered as the primary differentiator of the product. However, research revealed that sustainability alone was not the strongest motivation for most travellers. Instead of positioning sustainability as the core objective, I integrated it as an additional decision factor within the planning process. This allowed users to make conscious choices naturally while prioritising their primary travel goals such as convenience, experience, and budget.

Designing an End-to-End Travel Experience

The final experience guides users through a structured journey:

• Discovering interests and preferences

• Selecting destinations and travel dates

• Adding traveller details and constraints

• Generating personalised itineraries

• Reviewing and editing travel plans

This approach reduces the cognitive effort involved in planning while keeping users in control of their final decisions.

Design Sprint to Refined Product Concept

Caravan was initially conceptualised during a 10-hour design sprint at the Adobe Designathon hosted at IIT Delhi, where it was selected among the top five designs out of 75 submissions. Following the event, I refined the concept based on jury feedback, improving the product strategy, interaction flows, and overall experience design. Through Caravan, I explored how AI can transform complex decision-making processes into personalised, accessible, and meaningful experiences.