AI vs Real Roads: How GigaChat, Alice AI, and ChatGPT Planned a Vacation

Samara to Sochi is roughly 1,800 km (1,120 mi)—and in the August heat that distance becomes an endurance test. A good travel planner must account for more than mileage: switchbacks, traffic, daytime heat, a child, a dog, toll sections, and the driver's stamina.

GigaChat: a survival sprint

GigaChat decided we were cyborgs. It split the route into just two days: first Samara to Rostov-on-Don, about 1,000 km (620 mi) in 11–12 hours, then another 750 km (465 mi) to Sochi. On paper that looks brisk, but after Dzhubga you hit a 150 km (93 mi) switchback that clogs with traffic in August. With a child and a dog in the car, that schedule quickly becomes a family stress test.

The model also broke basic calendar logic: leaving on August 5, spending 2 days driving and 2 days in Sochi, it suggested driving back on August 8.

Alice AI: vague advice and the switchback paradox

Alice AI was more cautious and honestly warned against night driving on the Sochi switchback. It split the route into 3 days with overnight stops in Volgograd and Krasnodar. But it gave almost no precise timing: "morning—leave Krasnodar, day—drive to Sochi." Without an early start the family would almost certainly hit peak traffic and reach the switchback in the evening.

ChatGPT: a geographic detour

ChatGPT was more considerate and avoided a single marathon day, breaking the trip into several legs. The problem showed up on the map: Samara → Kamensk-Shakhtinsky → Gelendzhik → Sochi. A stop in Gelendzhik sounds tourist-friendly, but for this task it is a huge pointless detour along an overcrowded coast.

AlpacaBag: working with reality

In the Samara to Sochi route built in AlpacaBag, the drive is split into 3 days. Day one—810 km (503 mi) to Volgograd; day two—a calmer leg to Kamensk-Shakhtinsky; day three starts at 4:00 a.m. to clear the M-4 and reach the Sochi switchback before peak heat and heavy traffic.

The plan separately warns about August heat, suggests a cooling mat for the dog, and estimates fuel and toll costs. That is not a fantasy trip—it is a workable scenario.

In the second case we tested how AI handles context and negative prompts. The brief: a couple aged 45+, 3 days in Yekaterinburg, the lowest budget tier, interest in architecture, contemporary art, and gastronomy. The main rule: no history-themed tourism.

Alice AI: the illusion of gastronomy

Alice AI ignored the history ban and sent us first to the Sevastyanov House—a 19th-century historic mansion. The bigger miss was food. Seeing "low budget," Alice suggested a chain cafeteria, "Vilka Lozhka," as a gastronomic stop.

That is a typical general-AI mistake: it does not feel the difference between an authentic food experience on a small budget and plain hunger relief. Logistics suffered too: the White Tower and the Chekists' Town ended up on the same day with no regard for distance between districts.

GigaChat: amnesia about constraints

GigaChat also fell back on a historical template: it suggested starting on Vayner Street, where "merchant architecture from the early 20th century survives." The model did not hold the negative part of the prompt and produced a generic tourist route suited to an abstract visitor, not these specific travelers.

ChatGPT: just don't go

ChatGPT better respected the dislike of history and leaned into contemporary art galleries. But to keep everything walkable it simply dropped Uralmash and the White Tower. Convenient—but travelers would miss an important part of constructivist Yekaterinburg.

AlpacaBag: respect for the brief

The Yekaterinburg route from AlpacaBag has no merchant mansions or random historic stops. The plan includes the L52 creative cluster, the Underground Museum, Nurov Garden, and a dedicated day for Uralmash—cheaper and faster to reach by metro.

Instead of a cafeteria it picks affordable but authentic spots like dumpling houses, lays out a daily budget, and adds apartment-hotel options. For a brief of "architecture, contemporary art, gastronomy, no history," that matters far more than another sightseeing list.

Generating nice text is not enough. You need to use it on the road: open it on your phone, share with travel companions, download it, check the budget, jump to route points. GigaChat outputs a wall of text. ChatGPT can try to assemble a PDF, but in our test the export broke encoding, photos disappeared, and free tier limits ran out quickly.

AlpacaBag works differently: you get an interactive site preview and a final PDF with photos, timing tables, and clickable links. Driving routes can go straight into maps, and the finished plan can be shared with companions.

General chatbots are fine when you are on the couch dreaming about a trip. They quickly suggest ideas, neighborhoods, sights, and a rough plan. But once real kilometers, fuel cost, toll roads, switchbacks, seasonal traffic, and hard constraints enter the picture, their hallucinations can wreck a vacation.

If you need a ready itinerary calculated down to minutes and money—one you will not have to fix by hand—a dedicated tool works better. Start by building your own travel plan, and for reference see real examples: Samara to Sochi and Yekaterinburg for 3 days.