10 iPad Apps to Help Ease Your Work-Leisure Travel Woes

by Don Reisinger

Anyone going on a cruise will want to try out Cruise Ship Mate. The app, which is available for free, includes a countdown to the user’s next cruise, as well as useful information when out to sea, such as the ship’s location and deck plans. Plus, Cruise Ship Mate includes a user gallery, allowing users who take photos while on the ship and store them in the app.

Having Yelp’s free app on the iPad is an obvious choice. The app includes a location feature that lets users determine the best places to eat or visit within a particular area. Yelp has more than 70 million reviews on businesses around the world, making it one of the more appealing options for people looking for user-generated evaluations of restaurants, coffee shops and more.

Airbnb is a great app for those who are seeking accommodations either in the moment or at the last minute. Airbnb matches homeowners with prospective tenants, allowing them to quickly rent out a location anywhere in the world. Some people book their entire vacations via Airbnb, while others just book a portion of their trip. Either way, Airbnb takes an interesting look at booking stays in more than 34,000 cities around the world. The app is free.

The free version of TripIt is another fine app for those who want to keep track of their vacations. With the app, users can input everything from airfare information to places to stay. Users can also create agendas, track whether a flight is on time and much more. TripIt is arguably one of the most useful travel apps in this roundup.

GasBuddy is a handy, free app for those who are traveling by auto for work or play. The app tracks a user’s location and provides insight into pricing around that spot. It also provides navigation to the gas station the user picks. GasBuddy is a great way to save some cash on ever-expensive gas.

Travel List is a $1.99 app that helps users keep track of what they need to bring on a trip. Users can create an itinerary and prepare a packing list. As they pack for their trip, they can check off the items to ensure they didn’t forget anything. Travel List is a useful app for anyone who has a tendency to forget things when they go on a trip.

Flight+ is similar to Cruise Ship Mate, providing valuable information for anyone who’s traveling in the air. The app, which costs $3.99, tells users what time their flights will arrive and what the weather is like at their destination, and it will even provide help with alternative flights if their original flight is canceled. Flight+ is especially useful for frequent flyers.

The free Triposo app is one big travel guide for the iPad. It lists 30,000 destinations, with detailed maps around a location, helping users find points of interest. Users who have Triposo on multiple devices can sync that data, and the app will suggest places to go based on location, weather and time. It’s a full-featured offering for anyone who wants to try out new spots.

Kayak is for anyone who wants to quickly search for flights, hotels and cars, but doesn’t have the time to look at more than one search engine. The service has a built-in search platform, but can also find hotels and other destinations around a particular location. Kayak’s free app also doubles as a flight tracker and itinerary manager, offering some additional help for keeping track of travel plans.

This may sound like an odd inclusion, since Apple Maps is built into the iPad, but Google Maps is still the de facto leader in mapping technology. The app provides directions, location-based points of interest and even Street View, so folks can see places on the street level. Google Maps is similar to Apple Maps—but better. And it’s free.