Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

Since I’m right in the middle of my job hunt, I’m doing a lot of traveling. Red-eye flights, terrible and overpriced airport coffee, and strange and unfamiliar lands are becoming staples of my life as I try and figure out what to do after I graduate.

Traveling’s a whole lot easier than it used to be, though, mostly thanks to the Web. There are a bunch of applications out there that aim to make your traveling experience easier and more comfortable, and when combined they can make traveling easier, and help you feel like a  local even in the strangest of lands.

Here’s a few of my favorite ways to get to a new place, and get to know it quickly: (some are US-centric, sorry!)

Dopplr

Dopplr’s about both planning and coordinating travel, particularly within a business. First, it lets you gather all your information (flights, hotels, itinerary, etc.) into one place via email or SMS. You can share your travel plans with contacts (via Gmail, Twitter, and others), and you’ll get alerted by Dopplr if you’ll be crossing paths with someone you know. You can offer and receive advice about your trip, and figure out what to do and who to see while you’re there.

It’s a great way to keep track of where people are, and when you might be in the same place at the same time, as well as a simple way to aggregate and access all your travel plans from a single spot.

Yelp

Yelp is really the one-stop source for finding anything and everything in your area. When you’re in a new city, poke through Yelp to find reviews and options for everything from restaurants, to dry cleaners, to libraries.

There are tons of “best of” lists if you’re looking to hit the hot spots when you’re traveling, and every listing you’ll find (via search or browsing) has useful info like address, phone number, price, reviews, and much more. Yelp’s the first thing I fire up (there’s an awesome iPhone app) if I’m looking for something to do in a new place, because the community around it is so large and active that there’s a ton of great info for the newcomer.

Tripit

Tripit’s a really simple application, that collects and stores all your relevant information for your trip. When you get a confirmation email (for a flight, or hotel, or rental) just forward it to plans [at] tripit.com.  Tripit builds an itinerary for your trip, keeping in one place all the information you’ll need – flight status, weather, confirmation numbers, and all that jazz.

Instead of digging through your email or a stack of papers, just fire up Tripit (there’s a mobile version, an iPhone app, and great email-based retrieval) and you’ll get all the information you need on your trip.

Where

Where is my newest discovery, and is quickly becoming my must-have iPhone app. It’s built around finding where you are, and directing you toward local weather, local news, cheap gas, nearby coffee, and even things like traffic information and movie times. Knowing what’s nearby is a huge plus in figuring out what to do with yourself in a new place, and Where has, more than a few times, saved the day by finding me some free Wifi nearby.

Where is available all over the country, and has apps for the iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Palm. If you don’t have those, though, if you just text WHERE (94373) with a command like “Starbucks 43rd and 3rd New York NY” you’ll get a response with the nearest location of a Starbucks, or hotel, or public bathroom – just about anything you might need to find nearby.

Urbanspoon

Urbanspoon’s all about food – and who doesn’t need to find a good place to eat every once in a while? If you’re on an iPhone, just shaking the app will find you a place to eat nearby. On the Web, though, there’s a lot more functionality: you pick where you are (there’s a shockingly large number of cities and towns supported), what you want to eat, how much you want to spend, and let Urbanspoon figure out where you should go.

Urbanspoon lets you look at menus, figure out prices, find a random new place to eat, and lots more – for the adventurous foodie, or anyone in a new place, Urbanspoon is the best thing ever.

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor is a lot like Yelp, but is more review-centric. Instead of you finding a place to go, and then telling you about it, TripAdvisor really begins with the reviews in mind. Everything is sorted by popularity of review (and for most things, at least in large cities, there are ridiculous numbers of reviews), and from there you can drill down what you’re looking for. There are tons of categories and choices you can make (like how important free WiFi is to you in your hotel choice) to narrow down your choices and find exactly what you want – again, all accompanied by review after review.

TripAdvisor bills itself as finding what people trust, and really lives up to its tagline of “get the truth. then go.” There are tons of reviews, and in sheer numbers you start to figure out where you really want to go and try. It’s a great source when you’re planning a trip, as well as if you’re just looking for a place to eat or a hotel in a pinch.

With these apps and a little willingness to try new things, you’ll be set to have a blast, no matter where you are.

How do you travel better?