Gowalla

Gowalla is the leading Worldwide social guide

Time of heavy city guides with hundreds of pages has come to an end. There's a funnier and more social way to discover most loved places and cities around. Actually, there's a social way to do it: Gowalla.

The users are the editors of this social guide that contains cities, theme parks, national geographic places compilation, universities and many other interesting places to visit. All of them are displayed with its logo on a vertical scrolling menu. Choose the one you want to visit to know about the place, or check-in there if you're nearby. You will see a brief description, worthy monuments or museum to visit, services nearby and many other resources. You can share your check-ins and what you're doing on Facebook (by Facebook Connect). We're missing though share them in other social networks.

You can also add commments, impressions and suggestions or "like" (actually is "love") that places. Add as many Gowalla friends as you want. Keep in mind that as many as you have, the easier will be discovering new places to visit. There's a search bar to look for services you want to see: sports-related events, museums, coffee, etc. One of the features we like most is that you can add Highlight to the places (kind of tags). For example, you can tag the Eiffel Tower as "Engaged" or "Scenic at night" or maybe "Wedding day".

As Gowalla Inc. (its developer) says, Gowalla allows you to "discover where your friends have visited, what the locals love and where experts recommend you go". It's like a safe bet guide. The only flaw is that yo cannot add new cities or places, that's a developer issue. In order to make it actually social, it would be great to have freedom to set new cities or places, even though they wouldn't appear on Home.

This app was featured in one of our videoreviews. Watch it here.