Can AI plan your NC500 tour?
After more than twenty years of guiding visitors around the North Highlands, I decided to give artificial intelligence a turn in the driver's seat. The brief was realistic: create a seven-day journey beginning and ending in Inverness for a visitor interested in landscape photography, red deer, history and especially prehistory. Gemini responded with a polished itinerary featuring Clava Cairns, Torridon, Handa Island, Ardvreck Castle, Camster Cairns, Dunrobin Castle and Cromarty. At first glance, it looked rather good. It had recognised many of the right names and joined them into a clockwise circuit, which is precisely why its weaknesses were so easy to miss.
The trouble begins when the attractive list is treated as an actual journey. Gemini places Clava Cairns east of Inverness Airport when it lies to the south, recommends exploring Beinn Eighe without asking about mobility or footwear, and repeatedly forgets that travellers need time to eat. Handa Island requires several hours, yet the same day also includes Achmelvich, the Drumbeg road and the Old Man of Stoer. That last stop is not a quick roadside photograph but a walk of several miles over rough ground, and nobody has established whether the visitor can manage it after a morning on Handa.
The deeper problem appears when Gemini loses its position on the map. It sends the visitor from Lochinver through Durness and around Loch Eriboll to Dun Dornaigil, only to direct them back to Durness afterwards. It presents Durness and Tongue as interchangeable overnight stops, although a substantial drive separates them, while the Caithness attractions are arranged in a wasteful north-south zigzag that overlooks much of the natural route. Its most entertaining mistake describes the triangular lintel at Dun Dornaigil as rising nearly seven metres. The doorway is reassuringly human-sized. It is part of the surviving broch wall that reaches that height.
None of this makes AI useless. It found several excellent locations and produced a reasonable framework for further research, but it did not understand Highland travelling speeds, walking time, meal stops, changing weather or how long a photographer may remain in one place. Use AI alongside a proper map, reliable guidebooks, current operator information, tide tables, opening times, accommodation checks and the experience of people who know the roads. A North Coast 500 tour is not a collection of pins. It is a journey made by real people with limited time, energy and daylight.
To combat any issues AI may provide, book one of our North Coast Explorer private tours!