What is your favorite app for local recommendations (from restaurants to service providers) when traveling?
The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Yelp
“I don’t even go anywhere new locally without first checking out their Yelp reviews. When I’m out of town, I Yelp just about everything and it has rarely let me down. Good reviewers will even let you know specifically what to order sometimes. You can’t go wrong!”
– Maren Hogan, Red Branch Media
2. TripAdvisor
“I don’t know what I would do without TripAdvisor when I’m traveling. Whether it’s for business or pleasure, when I’m in a new place I make it my duty to try the best foods and venues that the local community has to offer. Over time, I’ve found that TripAdvisor has the most consistently accurate ranking system that never lets me down.”
– Logan Lenz, Endagon
3. Facebook Places
“I know everyone thinks Facebook is old news, but they have an incredible amount of information about locations and what’s good and bad. Their mobile app is incredibly simple to use. And most importantly, I trust my friends’ recommendations over those of strangers.”
– Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
4. Eat24
“Order on the go but eat what you know. I use Eat24 religiously. I travel almost weekly, so I use the app to deliver food straight to my hotel room. This allows me to keep working and stay healthy.”
– Brad Hunstable, Ustream, Inc
5. Eater
“On road trips I use Yelp. But in New York City and other metropolitan areas, it doesn’t deliver compared to an editorially curated site such as Eater.”
– Rameet Chawla, Fueled
6. LoungeBuddy
“LoungeBuddy is a fantastic app that maps out the airports in which you will be traveling and locates all of the different lounges available to you. It then shares their amenities, hours and prerequisites. It has made so many nightmare travel experiences into happy dreams knowing where to go.”
– Steven Le Vine, grapevine pr + consulting
7. Foursquare
“Foursquare has never been wrong when it comes to its restaurant rating algorithm. Anything with a score of 9.0 is going to be exceptional.”
– Jason Smikle, fNograph
8. Zagat
“I don’t trust Yelp because I feel the reviews are skewed. I’ve found Zagat to be much more reliable, and since Google acquired them they’ve really expanded dramatically.”
– Carlo Cisco, SELECT
