Lonely Planet comes to the iPhone

I love Lonely Planet. I think their travel books strike the perfect balance between being informative and interesting. I always buy their books when I'm going somewhere unknown, and sometimes even if I'm just dreaming about a destination.

Honestly, travel guides were one of the first things I thought of when I first started hearing about the iPhone. There were some free apps when the app store first opened, and of course you can go to any travel website as long as you're on the network. Until now we've been waiting for a full featured, iPhone specific answer to carrying around an actual book.

The wait is over.

















I'm planning on downloading the San Francisco version as soon as I can find some WiFi (it's too big to download over 3G). The San Fran guide is free this week, to coincide with Apple's World Wide Developers Conference. The guides are regularly $16 for those of us in the US. Read the article from Wired, and I'll try to watch for his follow-up once he's actually used his guide in NYC. Maybe someday I'll use one in some far-flung land, and I'll be able to write my own review.