When I plan for a trip and need to gather travel information, TripAdvisor is definitely the first website I check out. If you haven’t heard of TripAdvisor, it is the world’s largest travel community with over 35 million reviews and opinions. It offers free travel information including hotel/restaurant review and place-to-go information. The best is you can get advice and opinions from millions of travelers.

On Tuesday, TripAdvisor finally unveiled a new iPhone app that lets travelers to access the travel community on-the-go. You can search for flight, hotel review, place to eat and attraction simply through your iPhone. As mentioned in the press release, the app is designed for use in 20 countries and supports different languages:

Our iPhone app gives people in 20 countries and 13 languages a new way to access the more than 35 million traveler reviews and opinions available on TripAdvisor,” said Steve Kaufer, founder and CEO of TripAdvisor. “Now, travelers can find a great hotel, restaurant or attraction and book a cheap flight whether they’re at home or on the go.”

The new TripAdvisor app is to replace the existing Local Picks app in App Store. Other than the name change, the new app is built from ground up with a bunch of new features including:

• Browse hotel and attraction review
• Submit your own review
• Use TripAdvisor’s flight search to search for lowest flight fare
• Utilizes the built-in GPS to allow travelers to search for nearby hotels, restaurants and attractions

Thankfully, TripAdvisor is a free application and is available to iPhone and iPod touch users in 20 countries across North America, Europe, South America and the Asia-Pacific region. You can click this direct iTunes to download the application.

If you are planning for your next trip, don’t forget to try out this app and remember to let us know about your comment.

Imagine using your iPhone as a replacement for your wallet – pay for shopping, travel, dining and just about any other expense using your iPhone. Is it possible? Oh yes! An internet rumor suggests that Apple has tied up with Visa and DeviceFidelity to turn your iPhone into a credit card that could be used in restaurants and other retail establishments.

Apple is a pioneer in Near Field Communications (NFC) and it already owns several patents related to NFC e.g. ticketing, travel and many others. The trials for turning your iPhone into an e-Wallet start as early as this summer (Not to be confused with the iTunes eWallet app, which is a secure password manager). It is expected that the iPhone may eventually integrate several functionalities for performing peer-to-peer transactions, including the storing information representation a user’s payment accounts and crediting accounts, acquiring and sending payment information, and obtaining payment authorization.

The possibilities are endless. A NFC device can be used for acquisition of payment information. In addition, a camera device may be utilized in cooperation with an image processing application to extract payment information data from an image of a payment instrument provided by a payor.

So, how will the payment system work on iPhone? Your iPhone will send payment request information including the identity of the payee (yourself), which may include text data corresponding to the name of the payee, an e-mail address belonging to and/or identifying the payee, or any other type of suitable identification information. Additionally, the payment request may further include information indicating the purpose of the payment request. Your iPhone and payor device are then placed side by side to establish a NFC connection. Once the connection is established, the payment request information may be transmitted to and received by the payor device. The actual payment method may still be a credit card, a transfer from payee’s bank account or any other similar means.

The app is named ‘Transaction’ and is bound to be a game changer for the iPhone. Apple doesn’t want you to carry your credit card, nor does it want you to be writing checks or using your debit cards. Your iPhone will soon be your new wallet so why think of using anything else?

Today’s top 5 is directed towards iPhone users who travel for work, for fun, or for a little bit of both. From booking to preparing, finding your way to finding your food, and keeping yourself entertained while go, the iPhone really does have plenty of apps for all of that. Just like our other top 5 must-have iPhone app posts, all of these applications are available in the App Store. For the full run down, follow us after the break!

TripIt

Tripit [free - iTunes link] is an iPhone front-end to the free TripIt.com online service. With TripIt, once you book your online hotel and flight information, you just forward them the email and they automagically create a itinerary for you include flight times, airport maps, hotel maps, etc. Basically, all you travel has belong to them — but they’ll package and present it to you in a hyper convenient and consolidated manner.

If you’re a hardcore traveler, TripIt.com also provides a pro version with added functionality.

Alternative: WorldMate [free - iTunes link] or [$14.99 - iTunes link], recommended by Alli.

Appigo Todo

Making a list and checking it twice isn’t just for Santa’s once-a-year trip, it’s for everyone who needs to keep track of what to pack, where they want to go, and what they want to see. Appigo’s Todo Lite [free - iTunes link] is a great starting point for task and list manager, and if you need more, there’s a full version of Todo [$9.99 - iTunes] with a feature set that syncs with just about everything.

Alternatives: If you prefer to keep your lists in note-taking apps, check out our top 5 iPhone note apps roundup!

AT&T Navigator or NAVIGON MobileNavigator

If you’re driving rather than flying, turn-by-turn navigation and your sense of direction is anything other than perfect, turn-by-turn navigation is a must and there are two major types for you to choose from — online vs. on-device and subscription vs. paid outright.

AT&T Navigator [subscription - iTunes link] provides online maps and if you only need them for a summer road-trip through areas with good AT&T coverage, you can pay $9.99 grab it and go. (Powered by TeleNav, you can find other carrier-branded versions, like Rogers Navigator in Canada, in international App Store).

If you’re going off-grid, however, you’ll have to go offline and NAVIGON provides everything from the 1.5GB North America [$79.00 - iTunes link] to (for example) just the US East Coast ($29.00 – iTunes link]. They have a variety of international versions as well.

Alternative: whmurray recommends the built-in Maps app, which isn’t turn-by-turn but is GPS-enabled and powered by Google.

ZAGAT To Go

Yes, it’s complete overkill and yes, there are a numerous free/cheap ways to find restaurants with your iPhone but once in a while when you’re traveling you just want to do it in style and that’s ZAGAT To Go [$9.99 a year - iTunes link]. You get ratings and reviews from ZAGAT’s famous guide, and an offline mode so you can download it all to your iPhone, iPod touch (or iPad — it’s a universal binary!).

Alternative: Yelp [free - iTunes link] was suggested by Jamesus.

iPod

It’s built right into your iPhone and iPod touch (separated as Music and Video) and can keep you entertained with music, audio books, TV shows, movies, and podcasts everywhere from the airport to the airplane, hotel to restaurant. You can either transfer your own media from home before you leave or use the iTunes Store app to buy and rent the latest from Hollywood or download the best free content on the go. When Apple said the iPhone was the best iPod they’d ever made, they weren’t exaggerating. (Sure, the iPad gets 10 hours of video out of its battery, but it’s still not easy to pocket as the iPhone!)

Alternative: If you’ve got a SlingBox at home and want to keep up with your local sports teams or favorite shows while you’re out of town, SlingPlayer Mobile [$29.99 - iTunes link] will transport your TV to your iPhone anywhere you have a Wi-Fi or 3G signal.

Conclusion

Well there you have them, our top 5 iPhone travel apps. Did we many any of your favorites? Be sure to check out our iPhone App and Games Forum for more of our members’ recommendations, and leave yours in the thread — or in the comments below!

Top 5 iPhone travel apps is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Trip Tracker for the iPhone is a wonderful application that the frequent flyer will love! Developed by PageOnce, the app targets to be your one-stop place to manage all your trip itineraries. It lets you manually build your trip plan by adding your flight, hotels and car rental information. But if you own frequent flyer account or other hotel accounts, the app can also “automagically” imported all the flight and hotel details, minimizing all the hassles of manual input.

The app is simple and intuitive. Once you launch Trip Tracker, you’re presented with a summary screen of your trip schedule. To add any new information to the app, simply tap “New” and you will present to you three buttons: Flight, Hotel, Car rental. When you click on one you will be presented with two more options: Automagically, or manually. If you choose automagically, you just need to provide your frequent user account information and any booking made will be automatically updated to your iPhone app. If you choose manually, you then scroll through the list of providers and pick your airline, flight number, hotel, city, car rental agency and dates….i.e. manually setting up your trip information.

The app does not just save your trip plan. It also provides live flight tracking worldwide and let you check gate number, delays and cancellations, as well as, baggage claims. You get your hotel confirmation numbers and the check in/out dates along with the phone number and a Google map with the hotel location. For car rentals, you can check the car rental confirmation number, the pick-up/drop off dates and the contact information of the rental company within the app.

Unlike other similar applications, it’s not a must to register an account to use the service. But by signing up the Trip Tracker (which is free), you can also manage your itinerary via the online website. And all the changes are automatically synchronized back to the iPhone app.

As an registered user, you can enjoy free email alerts directly in your inbox. And, if you have push notification enabled on iPhone, the app can also notify you directly when there is any itinerary updates. Another feature available to registered users is the ability to block access to the app from the website. This is an excellent security feature. Thus, if you lose your iPhone (which has all your trip account information on it) you can visit the website and block access to the app on your iPhone.

All in all, this app is very easy to use and is extremely handy if you are frequent flyer. Once you set up your frequent user programs that you normally book through, you automatically have a lot of very useful information. Best of all, Trip Tracker is a free iPhone app and you can download it via App Store [iTunes link].

Not sure where to buy a book in San Francisco International Airport or looking for a fine restaurant in New York LauGuardia Airport? Featured in Apple’s recent iPhone commercial and developed by Mobility Apps, GateGuru is an iPhone app targets to be your personal guide when you’re in any of the top 85 US airports.

Just like Foursquare, Flyertalk and Yelp to provide interesting locations and restaurant for cities, GateGuru is the Yelp for airports offering comprehensive information to locate the best food, shopping and service option within airport. It is extremely helpful little app for anyone that does a lot of flying in the US. Not to mention, the app is free.

To get started with GateGuru you need to sign up. Once that is done, the app itself is very easy and intuitive to use. You can allow the app to discover your location or you can search and choose one of the 85 US airports available in the list. Once you have chosen the airport, you then pick the terminal you are in. Or you can let the app to locate your location. From there, you are presented with a tabbed screen that has four tabs: All, Food, Shop and Services.

Under the Food tab, you get a list of restaurants that you can search through. Choose any of them, you will see what type of category the restaurant falls into (Mexican, Italian, etc) and the list of reviews. The app also lets you write a review, bookmark the restaurant or update the listing that they have for this restaurant if any of the information is not correct. This is similar for both shops and services, although really only the restaurants seem to have reviews.

You can easily share your travel experiences with your Facebook and Twitter friends using Gate Guru by linking your accounts. Moreover, you can gain High Flyer points by rating and adding amenities. You can watch as you climb the High Flyer leader board and get your “Captain” wings. Moreover, the High Flyers tab shows the list of high flyers in your airport. The Captain for a particular airport is the user with the most points. You can compete and watch as you gain points against your friends and also nationally for top spot (or Captain), making travelling and finding stuff in the airports you visit a bit of an adventure in itself.

It’s a pretty good app for frequent US travelers. The only drawback I see with this app is it is not available internationally that it only supports the top 85 US airports. Hopefully, some of the more common international locations will be available in a future update. To try this free app, simply click this direct iTunes link to download it.