Geeky Mom: Cool Travel Apps for iPhone

Planning a trip this summer? With an iPhone of iPod touch planning and making the trip keeps getting easier.  Here are a few of my personal faves and some recommended by The New York Times

Trip planning apps

Expedia Itinerary Viewer (free) View your saved and booked Expedia itineraries with the itinerary viewer application.

Travelocity (free) Check flight schedules, gate numbers, security wait times and -- if you booked through Travelocity -- your itinerary. Also lets you search for "Hotels Near Me" 

AAA Discounts (free) Uses GPS technology to instantly identify nearby businesses offering deals for AAA members.

Are we there yet apps

Flight Status ($3.99) Flight status, arrival gates and baggage carousels.

Google Earth (free) Show this app to your kids and ask them to figure out when you'll arrive at your destination.

FlightTrack ($4.99) Real-time flight tracking and weather reports. (See photo above.)

Getting around town apps

Mass transit and subway maps for major cities:

CityTransit (for New York City, $2.99), 

Tube London City ($9.99) 

iBart(for the San Francisco area, free).

Taxi! (free)  finds taxi services throughout the US based on your location. 

Where to eat apps

Zagat to Go '09 ($9.99) Kinda spendy for an app, but it's just like a book with lots of suggestions for where to eat. Uses GPS. Photos of restaurants. Lets you make reservations with a click. 

Open  Table (free) Incredibly easy restaurant reservations.

Yelp (free) Helps you find a nearby restaurant, coffee shop--tips for finding really almost anything.

Urban Spoon (free) recommends restaurants in more than 50 cities 

Local Eats (99 cents), an iPhone version of the guidebook series "Where the Locals Eat" -- uses the the top 100 restaurants in 50 American cities. 

Tipulator  ($1.99) No need to think after finishing a delicious meal--this app figures out your tip for you.

Find almost anything apps

Where (free) Lets you scroll through different services (coffee shops, gas stations and restaurants) and shows you where they are on a Google Map, along with your location.

International travel apps

Truphone (free) Think Skype for the iPhone. This app lets you make cheap international phone calls over Wi-Fi (about 6 cents a minute to landlines and 30 cents to mobile phones),

MOMPF Currency Converter (free), which has a funny-looking cartoon for a mascot, allows you to easily switch among currencies and to store favorites.

Lonely Planet ($9.99) helps you say it with phrasebook apps in 10 languages including Czech, Italian and Vietnamese. 

Babelingo ($5.99), this "no talking required" app makes it almost impossible to screw up the pronunciation of foreign phrases--just choose a phrase like "Where is the bathroom?" and it displays the translation in big bold type. 

Looking for more info on apps?

You can also check out more iPhone apps at the  iPhone App Store. On this link Apple makes it super easy to browse top iPhone apps in specific categories like travel, news, social networking, reference, music, sports, etc.