How the World's Most Traveled People Use Tech to Travel: Takeaways from Our Panel at Extraordinary Travel Festival

At the Extraordinary Travel Festival in Bangkok, our Travel Tech Panel skipped the trend predictions and focused on what travelers can actually use. In the room were some of the most traveled people in the world, including many who have been to all 193 UN countries. So this wasn’t your typical panel at a travel tech conference, but rather a conversation about what digital tools we’re all using on our adventures around the planet.

The big themes: personal AI agents are now planning and booking real trips, flexibility is the best money-saver, local recommendations come from local platforms and communities, and in places like China you need the local app stack before you land.

Rachel Weiss of Lost Plate speaking about how AI is changing the way travelers discover tours.

The panel was moderated by Ian Cumming, founder of Travel Massive. He was joined by Joel Oleson, an enterprise architect in big tech (Sony, previously Microsoft); Keith Van, Head of Community & Partnerships at seats.aero; Matt Gray, founder of Pangea, a social travel app that has acquired several travel apps over the last 18 months; and Rachel Weiss, Digital Marketing Manager at Lost Plate food tours and creator of Rachel Meets China, who has lived in China for 11 years. Between them, they brought a wide mix of perspectives, from big tech and award travel to social apps, food tours and life in China.

On stage, we followed the journey of a trip in three stages, planning, booking and experiencing, with each panelist sharing the tools and tips they rely on at every step.

Key Takeaways

1. Personal agents are booking real trips. Joel had his agent research and book a balloon flight in Myanmar, filling in the forms in its own browser. Nearly everyone in the room uses AI to plan; far fewer use agents yet.
2. Always check what the AI books. Joel’s agent booked a flight that left him stuck in Ottawa for two days with too much buffer. Review dates and connections before you approve.
3. Go local for local recommendations. In China, use RedNote (now with translation) and Dianping. Google and Tripadvisor results there can be years out of date.
4. Flexibility is the best money-saver. Search wide on Kayak, Google Flights, Kiwi or seats.aero, don’t fix your airports or dates, and price the whole trip, not just the flight.
5. Set up the local stack before you land. Alipay with a foreign card, WeChat, Amap (now in English) and a VPN or eSIM in China; LINE in Thailand and Japan; Grab or Uber on arrival.
6. A global eSIM changes arrivals. Keith lands with data on a flat monthly plan that still receives SMS for two-factor codes from home banks.
7. Community still beats algorithms. For remote places and deeper experiences, the panel leans on fellow travelers, local fixers and trusted networks.

Plan: let AI agents do the legwork, then ask the locals

The Travel Tech Panel on stage at the Extraordinary Travel Festival.

Personal agents. Joel has used personal agents for about a year, starting with OpenClaw and now mostly Muse, Meta’s agent available in the US, Canada and Japan, plus Grok. For this trip he gave his agent his constraints and let it find which balloon companies flew over Bagan on which days, then fill in the forms and book. He paired that with asking his travel community who had been to Mandalay. For a week in Pond Inlet in Canada’s high Arctic, where hotels cost over US$500 a night, agents helped him dig through obscure blogs and forums to plan a camping trip, and he saw narwhals.

When it goes wrong. Using Gemini, Joel asked an agent to book the missing San Diego to Ottawa leg around his existing flights. It looked right, he booked it, then realized it left him two days in Ottawa. He had to change the flight manually.

AI is already changing discovery. Rachel said Lost Plate kept hearing “I used AI” when asking customers how they found them, so they added it to their post-booking survey. A show of hands confirmed it: almost everyone in the room uses AI to plan or book, fewer use agents, and a handful have tried Muse (which is currently only available in the US and Canada).

Trusted local recommendations. Matt, a self-described lazy planner, asks people who have been there, through Pangea, forums and Facebook groups, and uses AI to surface niche forums. Rachel’s advice for China is to use the native platforms. RedNote now has translation and is the best place to search for local spots, and Dianping works like a local Tripadvisor. Google and Tripadvisor results in China are often stale, some still from 2019.

Book: search wide and stay flexible

Keith Van of seats.aero speaking about finding premium seats with points.

Search wide, then narrow. Keith said everyone travels differently, so the tech should fit your schedule, budget and flexibility. Frequent travelers often prioritize business class and lounge access for quality of life, which is the niche seats.aero serves by helping people find premium seats with points.

Tips for the best price. Cast your search broad on Kayak, Google Flights and Kiwi, and don’t lock in one departure or arrival airport. Price the whole trip too: a cheap flight to Switzerland can be undone by one night in Geneva costing as much as the fare. Flexible search works for stays as well; an Airbnb search for “anywhere in southern Africa, any time, 16+ guests” turned up a Botswana safari lodge with Starlink Wi-Fi that now hosts group trips.

On loyalty, the panel was skeptical. One panelist called themselves “very anti-loyalty” unless a company pays for your flights, since paying more just for status rarely adds up. Joel suggested anchoring to the three big alliances, Oneworld, Star Alliance and SkyTeam, rather than one airline. All agreed it’s worth collecting points, especially ones that don’t expire.

Audience question: where do you find immersive local experiences? Matt pointed to Viator and GetYourGuide as starting points, but noted they skew touristy; for depth, the MTP and NomadMania communities keep directories of local fixers. Joel searches personal blogs. Keith noted these platforms take a significant commission from operators, so contacting operators directly can get a better rate. Matt expects peer-to-peer recommendation apps like Corner, Flaire and Beli to expand from restaurants into experiences.

Experience: go hyper-local and land connected

Joel Oleson speaking about using AI glasses for translation.

Hyper-local apps. Every region runs on its own apps. In Thailand and Japan, LINE is the main chat app, so local merchants often won’t be on WhatsApp. Rachel’s China essentials: Alipay linked to a foreign card (cash is barely used), WeChat for messaging, a VPN or eSIM to reach blocked apps like WhatsApp, and Amap for maps. Amap is now available in English and is far more accurate in China than Google Maps.

Staying connected. Keith uses Popcorn, a global eSIM plan (about US$59 a month for new subscribers), so he has data as soon as he lands and can head straight out and call an Uber or Grab. His must-have is a plan that still receives SMS, so two-factor codes from home banks get through. He called it revolutionary compared with hunting for Wi-Fi and local SIM cards ten years ago.

AI glasses for translation. Joel uses Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, which are handy at markets where vendors are shy of a phone camera. Live translation fell flat in the last generation because of background noise, but the latest update can focus on the person speaking to you. His verdict: not perfect yet, but close.

Matt Gray of Pangea on trusting travel communities for remote trips.

Remote places run on community. Matt called himself old school: for the most obscure trips he leans on expert travelers in his network. Next year he’s joining an MTP trip to Libya without reading the itinerary, trusting the community that planned it.

Travel Tech Toolkit: 80+ apps recommended by the world’s most traveled people

A logo wall of over 80 travel apps crowdsourced by the ETF community.

Before the session, we polled festival attendees and panelists for their top travel apps, and crowdsourced about 85 different apps and websites, which we published and made available as a Travel Tech Toolkit.

Think of it as the collective home screen of some of the world’s most traveled people. The toolkit brings every recommendation together on one page, each with its logo and a link, covering everything from AI trip planners and flight search to award travel, eSIMs, payments, local maps and community apps. It’s free to browse and share, so bookmark it before your next trip.

Thanks to Joel, Keith, Matt and Rachel for sharing their tips, to everyone who answered our pre-panel app poll, and to Ric and the Extraordinary Travel Festival team for having us.