Fodor's City Guides for iPhone and iPad makes it not only fun to browse and learn about different cities in the world, it can also help you plan your next trip there. You'll get information such as what attractions are popular and what ones are less known but worth checking out. You can also view current weather conditions and exchange rates in featured cities.

The premise of Fodor's City Guides is to feature select cities around the world at any given time. Instead of giving you minimal information about a location, Fodor's focuses on giving you the most valuable about the few areas. When planning a trip, wandering off the beaten path and finding local diners, attractions, and hangouts can be hard since you're typically constrained by time. This is where Fodor's City Guides can be an extremely handy planning tool.

The cities currently features are Austin, New York, Paris, Barcelona, London, Rome, and San Francisco. After launching the app you can tap the download button in order to download the data on any of the featured cities you'd like to learn more about. There isn't any cost to download the guides in-app either. Once the data has loaded, you can tap into that location. Here is where you'll find a navigation menu along the bottom along with beautiful imagery filling most of the screen. The navigation allows you to view sections for an overview of that location, things to do, booking, and favorites.

The overview tab will give you a brief history of that location and some general information on it. You'll notice that each menu also has a submenu that allows you to drill down to even more information. You'll also see the current weather in some sections as well as what the current currency exchange rates are based on that country and your current location. Under the bookings tab, Fodor's partners with various sites such as Expedia and others to let you view events and book them all in one place.

The thing that really makes Fodor's City Guides stand out is the attention to detail and the breakouts of the areas they feature. Everything to neighborhoods to less known places to stay and visit are listed. You will also get access to transit maps so you can literally plan out an entire trip before even booking it.

The good

Beautiful imagery throughout the app
Easy to read menus that are broken out into logic sections
Neighborhood and transit maps are easy to read and follow
Bookings for hotels, shows, and more all in one app is a great convenience

The bad

Not very many cities featured at a time and there's no ability to manually add more

The bottom line

If you're thinking about traveling soon or just want to learn more about other places in the world, Fodor's City Guide is a free resource that can help you do just that. While there aren't a lot of cities featured at a time, it's for good reason. Fodor's focuses on providing quality information about the areas they feature instead of diluted vague information that may or may not be of assistance during travel.

Considering the iPhone version fits right in your pocket, Fodor's is a great resource to use while on vacation for the transit and neighborhood maps alone.