Top 5 Best Travel Apps

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Whether you're hitting the road or taking to the skies this travel season, you could do with a digital companion to help you plan your itinerary, make sure your tickets and connections are all lined up, and that you have plenty of time to do everything you want (or need) to do while you're traveling. This week, we're looking at five of the best travel planning apps or services, based on your nominations. 

1.Tripit

image credit http://www.independent.co.uk

This clever little app turns your smartphone into a pocket-sized PA. Just forward all your flight, hotel and car rental reservations to Tripit and it creates a digital itinerary for your trip that you can print out for yourself or share. A must download for business travellers.

IOS and Android, free

2. TouristEye

TouristEye is a little different; instead of helping you organize your trip or helping you find the best prices and options for your trip, it helps you build a "wishlist" of destinations where you'd like to travel and experiences you'd like to have. It doesn't have to be as fancy as a once-in-a-lifetime trip, either: the app is great for planning your annual family vacation (if you get to take one, that is), or if you want to just take a few day trips here or there. Of course, you can build your bucket-list of places you want to see before you die, and you can share that list with friends or family and collaborate with them on them. They can add waypoints and things to check out in the area, specific things to do when you're there, and together you can plan a trip together. Then, when you're on the road, you can look back over those plans with detailed information, links, maps, and more.

3. TripCase

Among the new features in TripCase Pro, a product from Sabre Holdings, is adding seat maps with available seats; turn-by-turn driving directions from locales within your itinerary; SMS flight alerts within the TripCase application; flight search up to one year in advance, and sharing of full travel itineraries with assigned recipients. 

TripCase Pro is available for free through Oct. 31, and a fee will be charged thereafter. Pricing will be $9.99 per month or $69.99 for an annual subscription. Users can click the Go Pro option in the free TripCase apps for iPhone, Blackberry and Android to get more information. The introduction of TripCase Pro coincides with the release of TripCase 2.0. TripCase says enhancements to its latest version of its free app include the ability to select contacts to receive flight alerts, social networking functions, the ability to access all travel tools from one screen, and easier use of maps to plot locations and events in your itinerary. A TripCase spokesperson claims the free version of the app, which will still be available, offers certain features, such as flight alerts, that some competitors only make availble in their premium versions.


4. TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor® is the world's largest travel site*, enabling travellers to plan and have the perfect trip.  TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travellers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, with more than 260 million unique monthly visitors**, and over 100 million reviews and opinions. The sites operate in 34 countries worldwide, including China under daodao.com. TripAdvisor also includes TripAdvisor for Business, a dedicated division that provides the tourism industry access to millions of monthly TripAdvisor visitors.

5.WorldMate

WorldMate, the popular travel planning and organizational service, has expanded its mobile reach onto the iPhone. The two different versions of the app, which were released late Tuesday night (one free, and a premium version that costs a hefty $19.99), give travelers tools to create and track travel itineraries including flights, hotel reservations, rental cars, and any appointments along the way.

The two versions of the app offer identical functionality for core parts of WorldMate's service, like a flight search tool, world clock list, currency conversion, and a heads-up display on what's on your schedule. However, the paid "gold" version comes without any kind of advertising. Feature-wise, it also adds niceties like an automatic flight status checker that, with the soon-to-be-released iPhone OS 3.0, will send you an alert if there's a delay or cancellation of your flight. It also plugs into Google Maps to tack together a rich map with all the places you're visiting on your trip.

Until it gets the live notifications, users of both versions will simply have to use the one-click "check flight status" link. This checks information against WorldMate's delay and cancellation tracker. It also lets you know about any last-minute gate changes.