Italy Travel Tips: How I Used AI When the WiFi Failed

I'm reporting live from Pienza — a tiny, gorgeous, medieval town in Tuscany where the wine is excellent and the internet is, as my mother would say, S-H-I-TTY. Real-time voice conversations with Claude? Absolutely not happening. But my AI has still been incredibly useful out here — just not in the ways I expected.

This week I'm sharing eight things I've used Claude for since landing in Italy, and almost all of them involve pointing my phone camera at something I don't understand. A washing machine with Italian dials. A church sign in Italian. A medicine box from the farmacia. A local art exhibit poster. Plants along a trail. Each time, a quick photo and a simple question got me exactly what I needed — no WiFi required.

Also this week: two recommendations worth adding to your travel toolkit. First, a heartfelt case for taking a trip with your siblings — and why a month in Tuscany has turned into a masterclass in family history. And second, the AllTrails app, which led me on a walk through wheat fields so gorgeous they looked like a postcard.

Come join me in Tuscany.

SHOW LINKS: 🥾 AllTrails: https://www.alltrails.com

CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome From Tuscany
01:02 Internet Reality Check
02:42 AI Travel Wins
03:37 Photo Translation Tricks
05:16 Everyday Problem Solving
06:13 Keep Expectations Grounded
06:38 Trip With Siblings
08:06 AllTrails Hiking App
10:12 Closing Thoughts And Safety

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, hello everybody. Welcome to the Aged Podcast, the one, the only podcast that is all about AI for the 65 Plus crowd. I'm your host, Jenny Dearan. And if you are a regular listener, you know I'm in Tuscany, Italy, for almost a month. So I'm recording this abbreviated podcast episode from my bedroom in our little apartment in Pienza, one of the most beautiful towns in Tuscany. So I am happy to say I haven't been paying a bit of attention to the news, so there's no AI in the news for this episode. We'll just move right into the main topic, which is all about how I've been using AI on my trip to Italy. So I'm about halfway through the trip. Just to give a sense of how many weeks I've been trying to use my AI and get Claude to help me out. I want to begin by voicing my disappointment. It's not about Claude, my AI. It's about the shaky internet service I have in Italy. Even in Rome, a big city where we had a nice hotel room, the internet was not very good. And then I moved on to Tuscany and into a very small town, Pienza, my most beautiful Tuscan town. But as my mother would say, the internet is S-H-I-T-T-Y. So for all intents and purposes, having a real-time conversation with Claude was not happening. That was a big disappointment because I'd heard about folks asking Claude, for example, when they're driving through the countryside, they'd say, Oh, Claude, or chat, tell me a little bit about XYZ town we're getting ready to drive into. That would be so great. But for me, driving through these little towns, when I tried it, Claude got to about, oh, how lovely. Let me give you a little information about the town you're about to visit. And then radio silence. Claude disappeared, not because he didn't want to help me, but the internet and my mobile service was not strong enough to carry it on. So maybe one day, but not now, a voice conversation, at least for me, with my AI, Claude, in rural Tuscany, is just not working. Even so, Claude has been very helpful. Really, it ends up being helpful in the way that Claude and your AI is helpful in the States. But because I have so many more questions as I'm in a foreign country, Claude, even though it's just answering my questions, making recommendations, brainstorming a little bit with me, Claude has still been really helpful. So let me give you just a few examples of some of the ways. No idea idea how to use the clothes washing machine in the apartment. No problem. Took a picture of the dials and asked Claude. Got everything I needed, including clean clothes. Next, I had the same issue with the stove. Snap a photo, got instructions. Had no idea how to use it. Next, we happened upon a small church on a path. There was a sign with some explanation, but in Italian. So I gave Claude the picture of the sign and just said, translate. And there it was, boom. So every once in a while, when I was out and about and using my mobile service, I could get an answer to a question or get a translation, but I just couldn't have a conversation. Next, I'm on this trip with my three siblings, and we wanted to share a photo album in iPhotos. We tried, but we just couldn't figure it out. We made a couple of efforts that we aborted. Anyway, we finally got great instructions from Claude, and we're all set up. Our kids may not be super happy about that because we've shared it with them, and of course, with the four of us on this trip, we're taking a lot of pictures, so maybe a little too much. Next, across the street from our apartment, there's a sign for some sort of exhibition. It's up for only a week. I took a picture of the poster, and Claude gave it back to me with a great summary of the exhibition. So this is an example, I think, of how far AI and Claude have come. Because remember, early on, they really couldn't get much current information. But now, I mean, that's pretty awesome. This is only a little week-long, small exhibition in a tiny little town in Tuscany, and Claude was able to get me the information. So, bravo. Next, I got a cold and it's going through to my siblings. Went to the pharmacy, got some medicine. I could use my hands and a little bit of the language I was able to pull out to talk with the pharmacist, but I still wasn't sure what I got. No problem. Just snapped a photo of the box, and Claude gave me clear instructions. Next, I went for some long walks and found some unusual plants. Snap a photo, and Claude told me about the plants. Because we're in Tuscany for a month, this is the next example, I'm doing some cooking. I needed help understanding the various types of flour, US versus Italian. Bread flour, all-purpose, double zero. I wanted to cook, but I didn't know what the name of these flowers would be in Italy. No problem. Claude gave me what I needed. I won't go on because I think you get the picture with the examples that I've given to you, but no question, AI has been extremely helpful as we've traveled so far. But keep your expectations low for conversations in real time. So let's move on to my two recommendations coming to you from the road. Recommendation number one: take a trip with your siblings. It is so great to reconnect in such a condensed fashion. For us, we are together for almost a month. Okay, maybe that's impossible for you, but even a week would be great. It's a time to fill in the many gaps of information you have about your family history. My oldest brother told us about times in our early lives that we'd completely forgotten, or maybe even never really knew about. You could also time test the caricatures you've had of yourself and your siblings. Have they held up from your days growing up? For us, my oldest sister was the prima donna. Is she really? No. My other sister was the wild one. She's probably the most careful of us all. My oldest brother, he was the one who would drink too much and crash cars. He doesn't crash cars anymore. And I do give him a run for his money on the drinking scene, especially here in Italy. Needless to say, we are thoroughly enjoying the Vino. So my oldest brother pulls up his original MO. As for me, I was the baby of the family for five years, and I have to say, my siblings still take very good care of me. Anyway, consider it. Plan a trip with your siblings. That's my first recommendation. And my second recommendation is an app called All Trails. I've used it so much on our trip. Because of it, we've taken some of the most beautiful walks or light hikes. All Trails is an app that gives you access to millions of maps of trails worldwide. It's a little bit like Waze. There are people who are contributing to the information provided. And it has maps, photos, reviews, difficulty ratings. It's really great, and you can access it all from your phone. The free version is genuinely useful, but if you want offline maps, which is huge when you don't have cell service, like our situation, or turn-by-turn navigation, which I love because I'm a terrible map reader, so I can just look at this green line on my phone and I can just follow it along. It also gives you alerts when you go off the trail. So anyway, to get these features, you have to have a plus subscription. But it's only $36 a year. And I'm really looking forward to using them when I get home. Because we're spending so much time in Pienza, I immediately asked for all trails within 10 miles. I asked for medium and moderate hikes. Bingo. I got eight trails that matched my criteria. I've taken four of the walks. One took me through wheat fields with paths only two feet wide. If I didn't have that green line that I was following on my phone, I would have thought, no way, this is the path. But you know those spectacular photos of Tuscany? The rolling green fields touched with golden wheat? Well, just picture me in the middle of that picture. Without all trails, I would never have had that brilliant experience. Alright, we're skipping homework. We're going to go right to the closing of this episode because I'm about to head out to two more beautiful hill towns, Montecello and Monte Verde. Anyway, even on the road, I'm constantly reminding myself that AI can both be helpful and hazardous. So far, it has not steered us wrong, but I always have that on my mind. We live on the helpful side at Aged, but be sure to protect your info, double check advice, and trust your judgment. Thanks for listening. And remember, it is never too late to learn something new, especially something that might make life easier and especially more fun. Ciao.