Building an AI-Powered Travel Planner: My SheCodes Python AI Workshop Finale!

Building an AI-Powered Travel Planner: My SheCodes Python AI Workshop Finale! 🤖✈️

Hello, fellow coding enthusiasts! 👋 I’m thrilled to wrap up the SheCodes Python AI workshop and share my final project: an AI-Powered Travel Planner! This adventure taught me to weave together AI prompt engineering, live API data, JSON parsing, and vibrant Markdown styling. Let’s dive into the magic of building a dynamic, user-friendly app—and inspire you to create your own! 🚀🐍

My Coding Journey So Far

If you’re new here, I’m Stephie Oj, a Business Analyst turned coding newbie, passionate about making tech fun and approachable. Through SheCodes, I’ve tackled HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python basics, and now AI. This workshop was a game-changer, blending real-world data with AI creativity. Every bug I squashed felt like a mini victory—let’s celebrate these wins together! 🎉

Final Project: AI Travel Planner 🌍

My capstone project is a console app that crafts personalized AI generated travel itineraries. Here’s what it does:

• Greets users with a colorful rich.print() banner
• Asks for origin, destination, and trip duration
• Fetches live weather data for both cities using the SheCodes Weather API
• Generates a tailored itinerary with the SheCodes AI API, sprinkled with emojis
• Displays the plan in styled Markdown using the rich library
• Wraps up with a heartfelt credit sign-off

Blending weather data, AI responses, JSON parsing, and Markdown styling was such a cool way to tie all my skills together! Check it out –> Here 😄

What I Learned: Key Techniques & Takeaways

✔️ Mastering AI APIs for Smart Responses

I crafted precise prompts to guide the SheCodes AI API to create concise, emoji-packed itineraries with transport, attractions, meals, and tips.

prompt = (
    f"Create a {duration}-day travel itinerary from {origin} to {destination}. "
    "Include transport, attractions, meals, accommodations, and time-saving tips. "
    "Keep it under 15 lines, left-aligned, with a few emojis."
)
context = "You are an expert travel planner with deep knowledge of culture and logistics."

Key Takeaway: Clear prompts unlock AI’s potential—tweak tone and constraints to get polished, creative outputs! 🤖

✔️ Optimizing Prompts for Better Results

Slightly sidetracked… iterating on prompts (e.g., adding “left-aligned” or “under 15 lines”) made my itineraries scannable and user-friendly. Seeing the AI respond to my tweaks was so rewarding! 😎

✔️ Fetching Live Data with Weather APIs

I used the requests library to pull real-time weather data, parsing nested JSON to extract key details like temperature and conditions.

res = requests.get(
    f"https://api.shecodes.io/weather/v1/current?query={location}&key={api_key}&units=metric"
).json()
temp = round(res["temperature"]["current"])
cond = res["condition"]["description"]

Key Takeaway: APIs bring apps to life! Practicing JSON parsing helped me grab exactly the data I needed. 🔍

✔️ Styling Outputs with the rich Library

The rich library turned my AI-generated Markdown into vibrant, scannable console output.

from rich.markdown import Markdown
itinerary = Markdown(response_data["answer"])
console.print(itinerary)

Key Takeaway: rich makes console apps pop—no GUI needed! It’s a fun way to elevate user experience. 🎨

✔️ Parsing JSON Like a Pro

Navigating nested JSON from both weather and AI APIs became second nature, pulling out key data with ease.

response_data = response.json()
answer = response_data["answer"]

Key Takeaway: JSON parsing is like solving a puzzle—master it, and API-driven projects become a breeze! 🧩

✔️ Crafting a Seamless User Experience

I tied everything together with a welcoming banner, clear input prompts, and a warm sign-off, creating a smooth flow for users.

def welcome():
    console.print("[purple bold]Welcome to the AI Travel Planner[/purple bold] 🤖🌍✈️")

def credit():
    console.print("\nThank you for planning your trip with [purple bold]Stephie Oj[/purple bold] 💕 Safe travels! ✈️")

Key Takeaway: A thoughtful UX, even in the terminal, keeps users engaged and makes your app feel polished! 💖

Tips for Aspiring Coders 🧐

• Start Simple: Play with a basic API (like weather) before diving into AI.
• Tweak Prompts: Experiment with wording and constraints to shape AI outputs.
• Use rich: Add color and Markdown to make your console apps shine.
• Practice JSON: Write small scripts to navigate nested data—it’s a core skill!
• Celebrate Wins: Every bug fixed or feature added is a milestone—cheer yourself on! 🎉

What’s Next for Me?

I’m pumped to enhance my Travel Planner with error handling, caching, and maybe a web front-end. I’ll share the code on GitHub with a killer README to invite collabs. AI and Python are my new superpowers, and I’m ready to keep building cool things! 🚀

Let’s keep coding, creating, and exploring new possibilities together!

Happy coding! Stephie Oj. 🐙💖