If your road trip takes you past Zillah, Wash., check out the 90-year-old Teapot Dome Service Station—erected as a reminder of the Teapot Dome Scandal that marred Warren G. Harding's presidency.

If you’re taking a road trip this holiday weekend and want to work in detours to a few presidential landmarks in honor of Presidents’ Day… There’s an app for that.

The Roadside Presidents app is now available in the iTunes store for $2.99 from RoadsideAmerica.com, a website with videos, news, maps and free tools to help travelers plan their own road trips. It allows travelers to find historical sites, from traditional ones like graves and birthplaces, to the more offbeat.

“We’ve discovered so many bizarre presidential sights out there,” says Ken Smith, senior editor of RoadsideAmerica.com. “By visiting conventional landmarks, but also the hidden treasures, you get the broader, nuttier picture of America’s history. You’ll never think of George Washington quite the same way after you’ve seen his whiskey-making still—or of Ronald Reagan after seeing a statue of him eating a potato pancake.”

Travelers can search for sites along their route, or search by president. In addition to driving directions, the app gives opening hours, phone numbers, photos and irreverent write-ups for each site. First ladies, vice presidents, first pets, assassination and scandal are all in the app.

The Roadside Presidents edition is the second app from Roadside America, following the original Roadside America app, introduced in 2010.

Photo: Public domain, National Park Service

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From unseasonably warm weather to unreasonably expensive lift tickets, circumstances outside your control can quickly put a damper on a planned weekend of skiing. But now there’s an app that aims to help winter sports enthusiasts hunt down the best powder for the best price.

The free iPhone and iPad application from Liftopia, an online marketplace for ski and snowboard trips, lets consumers search for ski-resort deals, check weather conditions and map trips to ski resorts all over the United States.

Compare ski conditions at area resorts with Liftopia's new mobile app.

By its own count, Liftopia has information on 150 ski areas and offers lift tickets at up to an 80 percent discount off of window ticket prices.

The Liftopia Ski Reports, Snow Conditions and Ultimate Lift Ticket Deal Engine for iPhone and iPod touch lets users save their favorite resorts and research current weather, information on depth of snow, amount of fresh snow, and open trails and lifts. They can also view resort-specific information including photos, amenities and number of runs for different ability levels. And when they find the best deal with the best weather conditions, they can reserve lift tickets right from their phone.

Now if only there was an app that could actually make it snow.

Photo: Liftopia Blog

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Travelocity app upgrade offers insight on user trends.

It seems that the travel industry is constantly looking for ways to cash in on the mobile revolution. On any given day you can read about established travel companies releasing new apps or start-ups announcing new ways to incorporate the cell phone into travel. While the quantity of mobile travel applications is consistently rising, the quality (and usefulness) of all of these apps is still up for debate.

Are people really interested, for example, in checking out the view from their hotel room before checking in?

Only time will tell how consumers respond to new technology, but a new iPhone app update from Travelocity offers some insight into how travelers are adapting old purchasing behaviors.

Travelocity’s iPhone application was one of the first introduced by an online travel company, but it hasn’t been well reviewed by users in the iTunes store. A new update based on user trends may change that.

In a recent announcement, Travelocity revealed that more than 60 percent of hotels booked on the Travelocity iPhone application happen on the same day of the hotel stay. “Whether on a road trip or going on a spontaneous getaway, lots of travelers are regularly making last-minute bookings on a mobile device,” said Beth Murphy, Travelocity’s vice president of product marketing.

As a result, Travelocity added the option of booking “Top Secret Hotels” to its iPhone application. This feature allows customers to book heavily discounted hotels at the last minute without knowing the name of the hotel until after booking.

Working in a fairly new industry like mobile applications calls for a lot of guesswork and innovation from developers, but that can also lead to a lot of misses. It will be interesting to see if updates based on user data will produce better results.

The San Francisco CVB has come up with an original way to get their hands on an official app – A ‘Pimp my App’ contest in partnership with the APPNATION expo that’s being held at the Moscone Center in September.

SF CVB APPNATION Pimp My App contest

The San Francisco CVB gets a free app and free publicity, and APPNATION gets free buzz surrounding their event, which again is good for San Francisco. And the contest winner gets the fame and $2,500 as the grand prize.

Matt Stiker, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, SFCVB, says that “We’re hoping that the creative talent of the developers attending the conference, ignited by the assignment of promoting one of the greatest cities in the world, will result in some very intriguing and engaging apps for San Francisco.”

The winner will be announced at the opening session of the APPNATION conference on Sept 13, 2010.

This is the inaugural APPNATION event, and its success will determine how much attention, and how many participants and exhibitors it attracts going forward. The focus of the conference this year is on the “burgeoning consumer applications revolution and global app economy.”

In addition to the SF CVB app contest, APPNATION is also holding another similar app contest sponsored by the Fox television show Fringe. Contestants are welcome to enter multiple apps for either or both contests.

More info: www.appnationconference.com/pma.php

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