Sometimes it’s good to take a break and move away from your routine activities. Going places and discovering breathtaking scenes in different parts of the world can be the perfect way to recharge your life battery.

While some people can just grab a backpack and go, others need careful preparations before they could even place one foot outside the door. But both types of travelers could use some additional help to enhance their traveling experience, and the iPhone could be one of the best travel companions.

Maps & Compass

The days of paper maps and bulky compasses are over. Nowadays, we have digital maps and compasses built in into the latest generations of iPhones. While most iPhone users know that Maps can be used to search for locations and get directions, many are unfamiliar with the integration of the Compass feature with Maps.

When you are trying to find directions using Maps, tap the little button at the bottom left of the screen. The icon will change from a small arrow into a flashlight and the map will rotate according to the direction of the Compass. This feature will help you find your destination faster and easier.

As a bonus, Maps can also show traffic for the area so you can plan your route better (please note that traffic information is not always available, especially in remote areas).

Planning & Organizing

There are many things that intertwine within a trip, starting from the traveling methods, places to stay, activities to do, up to all the little details that come along the way. Unless you deliberately want your trip to be an adventure which is full of surprises, a little planning and organizing would really help you on the road.

There are many iPhone apps dedicated to helping users set up their travel as perfectly as possible before the actual event. These apps will help you with things like ticket reservations, hotel room booking, flight search, and recommendations for nearby eating places.

Three such apps are TripDeck, TripIt and Kayak. They have more or less similar functions.

Help On The Road

And what about during the actual travel itself? There are also an abundant numbers of applications that can help you with that.

Take Yelp, for example; this app can help you find useful places nearby, from restaurants to banks to drugstores. The app utilizes the iPhone’s built in GPS to find the user’s location and matches it with its databases.

A few months back, Ryan did a review of Yelp.

Another similar app is Where.

Take Me To My Car takes a different approach in utilizing GPS to help users. As the name suggests, this app’s sole purpose is to help users locate their parked car. Most of us know that parking a car is far easier than finding it again later. Especially when you visit a huge vacation site.

To solve the problem, all you’ve got to do is tap at the “Park Here” button when you park your car. And when you are ready to leave, tap “Get Directions” button and the app will help you locate your car and give you directions to its location.

Don’t forget another important element of every fun vacation: an internet connection. Finding Wi-fi hotspots would be less complicated if you have Wi-Fi finder apps such as WiFi Get Lite (the free version of WiFi Plus).

Another app called Lonely Planet will help you fit into a foreign environment by providing you with City Guides for major cities all over the world, and audio phrase books of many non-English languages to help you learn common phrases. While the app itself is free, you have to buy the City Guides and phrase books.

But the most important factor on every travel and vacation is actually doing it. All the help that you get from these tools would mean nothing if you do not enjoy your vacation. One way to do that is by making a travel journal. My Vacation Lite is the perfect app to do that.