We love traveling, but we know that we might not be in the majority with this opinion. Everyone loves a vacation, but getting there is not always the most fun experience. We travel frequently and thought about which apps have made trips easier, more pleasant and were just plain (er should we say "plane" he hee) useful. Here are seven of our top picks.

- Tripit: This free app turns your forwarded confirmation emails into itineraries. We love how easy it is to see the whole trip at a glance, complete with local maps and car reservation info. With Tripit Pro, which costs $49 a year, the app will show gate information including last minute changes as well as track your frequent flier info.
- Kayak Explore + Flight Search: We love using this free app to search for flights as well as hotels. The Explore option in the iPad app is also great for when you want to plan a short trip within a trip under a certain budget.
- Evernote: We use Evernote on a daily basis (and several times a day when traveling) and love how it helps us keep everything organized. With Evernote you can keep all of your receipts organized as well as important documents that you want always accessible. We love using Evernote to snap photos of things we want to remember, like where we parked or a great bottle of wine at a restaurant. This app is available for a host of mobile platforms including the iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, and Windows Mobile.

- Motion X Drive: This app turns your iPad into a turn by turn navigation system. Perfect for when you need a little more assistance with navigation than the Maps app can offer.
- Airline Apps: Whichever airline we are flying we make sure to have their app installed. With Fly Delta we have been able to skip using boarding passes entirely at many airports. Other airlines with apps include, American Airlines, Southwest, and Virgin Atlantic.
- OpenTable: This app makes finding and booking a reservation at restaurants in the US, Canada, and UK a quick and pain free process. The map feature makes it easy to choose from a great place near where you are staying.
- TimeTuner Radio Alarm Clock: This $2.99 app sets itself to the correct time and time zone and provides you with a host of internet streaming radio stations to wake up to. Perfect for traveling across multiple time zones.
For some more vacation tips check out these posts:

- 5 Tech Must-Have's While on Vacation
- 10 iPhone Apps for the Green Traveler
- 10 Tech Tips to Tackle Before Leaving for Vacation
(Images: Flickr user under license from Creative Commons, Flickr user Incase under license from Creative Commons, Joelle Alcaidinho, Flickr user Ferran Jordà under license from Creative Commons .)








Comments (9)
nice list. regarding international travel and internet service on your phone (i or other). I know that the cost is steep for data usage while abroad. Are you still charged if you are connected to wifi? Even if you are not, how would you make sure that your phone would not connect to another internet network if the wifi should go out? Common sense is telling me to keep the internet off on my phone completely while overseas.
I like to create a Google Map with all the places I want to visit before taking a trip to a new city, but a saved Google Map link doesn't work on the iPhone map app. I use http://my-maps.appspot.com/ to see my saved maps on the go.
Christina, thanks for that tip! I was very disappointed on my last trip to NYC that I couldn't access my Google map. You've confirmed that it wasn't just me not being able to figure it out!!
Art, to avoid "accidents" you can simply disable data roaming (data use abroad):
1)Tap the Settings button
2)Tap the General option
3)Tap the Network option
4)Slide the Data Roaming slider to Off
With this you can still use wifi :-)
@ art We turn data roaming off on phones tied to an ATT plan when traveling overseas. If data roaming is turned off the only way for you to access the internet overseas on your device is wifi. If there is no wifi and data roaming is off, you don't have internet.
We bought our iPhones unlocked, so when we are outside of the US for an extended time we use a local sim. Saves a bundle!
thanks for the tips!
Are these only iPhone apps, or are they available on the Android market as well?
If they're not, is there anything comparable?
You might already be familiar with this one, but I love the free app called gopostal. You take photos while on vacay and then you can send souvenir postscards (with a short message!) to your friends and family from your iPhone, iPodtouch or iPad. Postage and all is only $1.29 from your credit card.
I really like the idea of TripIt, and I even signed up for it. But NO WAY IN HELL I'm paying $49/year for this service.
I, unfortunately, work a job where I don't travel a lot. For the two or three airplane/hotel/rental car trips I do take a year, paying an additional $49 to keep this organized is a waste of money.
I would have gladly paid $10 for that app upfront, but a subscription for something I use infrequently just doesn't make sense.
And if I recall correctly, it's not so much a "free" version as it is a limited trial version.