One-day city itinerary as a Word document you can walk without signal
A prompt that turns a free day in an unfamiliar city into a working plan: opening hours checked against your arrival slot, timings that add up, a loop instead of a zigzag, and a document that survives roaming.
The prompt
Prompt for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini — a day in a city that does not fall apart at the second stop. Paste as one message: You are a route planner. Build a [DURATION: 8 hour] walking day in [CITY: Prague]. Start and finish: [POINT: hotel near Wenceslas Square] — work out the coordinates yourself and put them in the document along with the district name. Travel date: [SEASON: late September]. Pace: [PACE: moderate]. Must include: [MUST: lunch with local food]. Leave out: [SKIP: museum interiors]. Check, don't recall: your memory of opening hours and prices goes stale. Before you place any stop, look it up. Verify opening hours and closing days for every stop, Sunday and Monday separately; verify the restaurant's hours for the exact slot you put it in — many of the best local places serve dinner only and are useless at lunch; verify last admission, it is 30 to 60 minutes before closing. If sources disagree, say so and take the cautious estimate. Do the arithmetic: blocks plus transfers must add up exactly to the stated duration. Walking speed in a city with crossings and photo stops is 4 to 4.5 km/h, not 5. Transfers between stops are not free — put them inside the blocks. Leave a 10 to 15 minute buffer and say where it sits and what to cut first if we fall behind. Give the total distance. Build a loop, not a zigzag: if the route doubles back on itself by more than 300 metres, reorder the stops. Put food where it falls geographically, not across town. Maps links in this format: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&travelmode=walking&origin=LAT,LON&destination=LAT,LON&waypoints=LAT,LON%7CLAT,LON — coordinates, not names, because names are ambiguous. A link takes up to nine intermediate stops, and only three when opened in a mobile browser, with a 2048 character limit overall, so split a long day into segments of three. Transit legs get their own links with travelmode=transit. Never invent: real links only, prices and hours only from sources, and if you cannot find something write "check on site" instead of a plausible number. If something does not fit the time, say so and name what to cut. Put it all in a Word document and attach the file. In chat give a short summary and the two or three things that need booking ahead. Do not retell the document.
What you get
This prompt grew out of a failed day: a beautiful route where the market shut at 17:00, the restaurant only served dinner, and the way back crossed the same street twice.
What comes back. A summary table of time, stop and duration; blocks headed like "11:00 – 11:40 · Name"; transfers as separate lines with an explicit "from → to"; the lunch block with address, hours, average bill and two fallbacks nearby. Then maps links split into segments and a practical notes section.
Where it still stumbles:
1. With search switched off the model answers from memory. If there are no source links behind the opening hours, it did not check them and the whole timing is a guess.
2. Coordinates for landmarks come out right, small cafes are sometimes a block off. Open the link before you leave and see where the pin actually sits.
3. The sums do not always close on the first try. Check them: if the numbers do not add up, ask for a rebuild rather than a fudge.
4. A restaurant can simply be gone — no model learns that before you do. That is why the prompt demands two fallbacks nearby.
More prompts
Halloween porch at blue hour, carved pumpkins on the steps
Victorian vampire portrait from your selfie, candlelit manor
Food crawl itinerary: what to eat, where and in what order
Halloween flat lay: mask, candles and pumpkins on dark linen