We traveled across the state to Grand Rapids, Michigan earlier this month to take Tim's dad to lunch. Tim's dad only recently moved to Grand Rapids, so none of us were totally familiar with exactly what restaurants were nearby.
Tim's dad remembered the name of one place he liked, although he wasn't quite sure of its exact location.
I logged onto my mobile Yelp app as Tim drove and I was quickly able to find the restaurant's location.
I often use my Yelp app on the road this way to find the specific location of a restaurant, drug store, coffee shop, hair salon, art galleries, mechanic, museums or any other business that I want to, or need to, visit.
I originally thought of Yelp as mostly a source of restaurant reviews, but I've found so many other useful categories represented on Yelp. The fact that I use Yelp a lot on the road is the biggest reason that I often post my own reviews on the site, making a conscious effort to review things other than restaurants, to help others the way previous reviewers helped me along the way.
Yelp bills itself as an "urban city guide", although I've found it useful in cities large and small.
Reviewers referred to by what strikes me as a cutesy term "Yelpers", have generated over 47 million reviews over the years. The site averaged about 117 million unique views during the third quarter of 2013.
Yelp encourages reviewers to write about those things that they honestly like, discouraging the needlessly vicious negative reviews that can plague too many crowd-sourced review sites. Yelp is cognizant of the perils of excessive bias and monitors the site regularly to cull out obviously biased (pro or con), vindictive or fake reviews with their propriety software algorithm that vets reviews based at least partially on quality and reliability or activity on the site by the reviewers.
Yelp's latest review of ratings at the site for the third quarter of 2013 shows that 4- and 5-star reviews make up the bulk of reviews, with a much lower proportion of 1- and 2-star reviews. Most of my reviews are 4-star ratings as I spend most of my time at Yelp reviewing things I believe are most helpful or useful to others using the site.
Many local chapters of Yelp have their own community managers and schedule of events to encourage potential reviewers to try new places and experiences for themselves. We've attended a couple of these events held at local bar/restaurants and attractions like Detroit's Scarab Club, an artists' club, studio and gallery in the city's cultural center.
You can download the free Yelp app for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, iPad and other mobile devices at Yelp's Web site.
GasBuddy is another free app that I've found particularly useful on the road.
This site, like Yelp, also relies on user-provided data, but I've found it pretty reliable for finding the lowest gas prices wherever you happen to be traveling.
We quickly located the corner in our local area where we consistently seem to save 8 to nearly 20 cents for each gallon of gas we purchase with Gas Buddy.
I've also used it to find the cheapest available gas in various locations as we travel, again saving as much as 5, 10 or 15 cents per gallon when we gas up the car.
It's also easy to update a gas price at the site when you've found that the price is higher, or a little lower, since its last posting.
GasBuddy tracks gasoline prices at over 140,000 stations across the entire U.S. and in Canada. The site reports fuel prices based on reports from the site's users and via relationships with gas stations and credit card companies.
GasBuddy's main site also offers more tips for saving money on your fuel bill, like publishing the results of a recently released survey by Gas Buddy tracking gas prices over the past four years that shows the best days to fill up your tank is the late week or weekend in many states. The site also has tools like a trip cost calculator and a list of fuel and money saving tips.
You can download free mobile Gas Buddy apps for Android, iPhone Blackberry and other devices.
Do you have any other useful travel apps to recommend that I check out?
© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved
Yelp is a source we've certainly been using more alongside Tripadvisor but I often find you have to take some of the reviews with a pinch of salt. Sometimes you read some of the negative ones, you actually find the place and it's not half as bad.
Will certainly check out the GasBuddy app - that sounds really helpful!
Posted by: Rachael | January 30, 2014 at 05:55 AM
Thanks for stopping by Rachael! You're right, you really have to take a lot of reviews with at least a pinch of salt, but if there are a number of reviews, you can usually get a good sense of the place.
Posted by: Dominique King | February 06, 2014 at 04:43 PM