10 essential BlackBerry apps for travel

Computerworld - Whether you're out on the road for weeks at a time meeting with clients, just popping into the city for a weekend conference or taking the family on a hard-earned vacation, a few well-chosen applications can turn your BlackBerry from a communications tool into a road warrior's productivity powerhouse.

You can track expenses, mileage and business calls; find the perfect places to stay, eat and work; keep on top of your travel arrangements; and even call on a virtual concierge to handle last-minute changes of plan -- all from the comfort of your BlackBerry's familiar screen.

[Don't have a BlackBerry? Check out 10 must-have free Android apps, 10 must-have free Palm webOS apps or Five fab apps for iPhone OS 3.0 and the 3GS.]

Here are 10 BlackBerry apps -- some of them free -- that could be invaluable for your next trip. When you're done reading, tell us about your favorites in the reader comments.

WorldMate Live

WorldMate gives you convenient access to all the details about your upcoming trips.

Keep all your travel details readily accessible with WorldMate Live, an itinerary manager packed with useful features for frequent travelers. All you have to do is forward your airplane, hotel or car rental confirmation e-mails to WorldMate; the service parses out the relevant details and makes it all easily available.

Additional features in the free "lite" version include location-based search (using Yelp), currency conversion, hotel and limo booking, world time and the ability to search for local LinkedIn contacts. The paid Gold version ($11.95/month, $99.95/year) adds flight status lookup, "push" text alerts for flight delays, and a travel directory with contact information for airports, airlines, hotel chains and rental companies.

Exgis Time & Expense Enterprise

Exgis makes it easy to track expenses for later reimbursement and billing.

Track travel expenses by client or by project with Exgis' BlackBerry interface for its Web-based service. With customizable currencies, locations and expense types, Exgis Time & Expense Enterprise lets you quickly enter expenses, mileage or time spent working on a task, and associate each entry with a specific client or project for billing.

Online reports can be generated that list expenses by month, client or specific project, or all your data can be imported into Inuit's QuickBooks 2008. A 15-day free trial is available; after that, Exgis Time & Expense Enterprise is $10 a month or $110 a year.

If you do not need the advanced options offered by the enterprise option, such as the ability to sync to a corporate server, there are lower-priced single-function programs for expense, time or mileage tracking ($4.99 each), as well as Exgis Time & Expense ($9.99 for the Lite version without mileage tracking, or $14.99 for the Pro version, which includes mileage).

Poynt

Poynt's gorgeous interface and color coding make it easy to use.

Open up your local community, wherever you happen to be, with Poynt's free location-search application.

You can search for local businesses (by name or type) and people, research restaurants, search for movies by title or theater, and find the closest gas station or the one with the cheapest gas (which could prove to be a real lifesaver if gas prices climb over the summer).

Poynt integrates with your BlackBerry's phone and mapping features, making it simple to find a place or to call one you've already located. It also uses third-party services such as OpenTable to make restaurant reservations and CinemaSource to buy movie tickets. These services can be somewhat hit-or-miss, since only a limited number of local businesses are covered; still, it's nice when the stars align and you can handle everything from your phone.