Apps Make the Most of Spare Time in a Strange City Layovers, canceled meetings or time before a flight home - whatever the reason, business travelers may find themselves with a few hours to spare. Some use the time to catch up on e-mail or beat the BrickBreaker high score on their BlackBerry. But there is another option: exploring the local sights. And Web sites and smartphone applications have made that a lot easier. Alana Hoskin Smith works with consumer products and retail clients for Deloitte & Touche and is usually in one to two cities a week around the United States. She uses her extra time to visit local shops, boutiques and malls. "It's a personal interest, and it helps me with my work," she said. Ms. Hoskin Smith says she asks for neighborhood recommendations from the hotel concierge, her clients and friends. But she also uses an app called Poynt that is available on all smartphones to find local retailers, restaurant reviews and reservations, as well as gas stations so she can fill up her rental car. The app uses the location of her phone to recommend places nearby, and can display a map of how to get there. A similar app is AroundMe, which lists nearby banks, gas stations, hospitals, restaurants, hotels and other places, without user reviews. For business travelers abroad, the free app World Customs and Cultures, available on iPhones, iPads and iPods, offers a quick briefing on local mores. Sections cover greetings, personal space, laws, gender issues and local gestures and taboos. Travelers can also use a variety of language translation software and apps for their laptops and smartphones. Some require the phrase to be typed in, while others have speech recognition that works to varying degrees. Most, like Google Translate, are free. Globetrotters loyal to a favorite brand of travel book, like Fodor's, Frommer's, Lonely Planet or Rough Guides, will find that their Web sites are also filled with information on destinations worldwide. Another option is to search the Internet for "Top 10 things to do in Barcelona" or another city. That will net a variety of lists with suggestions. And travelers can compare a few of the lists to discover the most commonly recommended sites. Travelers with the new iPhone can ask Siri for recommendations, like "Are there any museums nearby?" Siri will respond with a list of museums close to their current location. Directions are also available. The Siri service can also answer specific questions like, "Is there a Cuban restaurant near me?" or "How do I get to the airport?" But it does not understand general queries like, "I have four hours to spend in San Francisco, what should I do?" For crowd-sourced local information, travelers can go to the free Trover Web site to see photos of nearby sights as well as stores and restaurants. The Web site was introduced last year and now includes 100,000 photos from 160 countries artfully arranged from closest to the location specified to farther out with an icon of a person walking, on a skateboard or in a car to indicate how far away they are. It is also available on Android phones and the iPhone. Spotted by Locals provides another useful Web site, series of blogs, and iPhone app which offer locally written travel guides and reviews of hangouts and events in 41 European cities. Wi-Fi Finder for the iPhone uses the phone's GPS function to show where the closest free and paid Wi-Fi hot spots are and includes more than 650,000 locations in 144 countries. For those who like guided tours, the app HearPlanet, for iPhones and Android phones, provides audio files describing local sights, like the Empire State Building, that travelers can listen to as they gaze, walk or ride past in a taxi. Rick Steves" Audio Europe offers free self-guided audio walking tours for the iPod, iPhone and Android, as well as travel podcasts from Mr. Steves's NPR radio program. A slide show accompanies the walking tours, which focus on London, Paris, Athens, Rome, Florence and Venice. Travelers who are often on the road may be not be interested in sightseeing, but still want a break from the hotel-taxi-meeting treadmill. Co-working, or "hot desk," spaces in some cities offer business people work spaces and couches, meeting rooms and basic office equipment to share. But the biggest attraction may be the other people there. Liz Dunn, a real estate developer who travels from Seattle to London several times a year, said she appreciated meeting the local start-up employees and designers when she arrived with her laptop and briefcase at the Hub at King's Cross, part of network of 28 worldwide shared work spaces geared toward social entrepreneurs and innovators. Local residents and visitors can buy an ongoing membership or pay for a day pass at the Hub. "It's funky and affordable," Ms. Dunn said, "and I feel like I'm embedding myself in the entrepreneurial nature of the city." The experience has even inspired her to open a similar gathering place, called the Agnes Underground, last month in Seattle. And for the traveler who may not have enough time to see the sights in town, GateGuru, for the iPhone and Android phones, provides information on the food and retail outlets at airports. Then, there are travelers like Mark Patricof, managing partner at Mesa Global, a media and entertainment financial and strategic advisory firm, who relies on old-fashioned techniques, like asking business associates or serendipity, to find some out-of-the-way spot in town. "When all you see is the inside of the airport, the hotel and the antiseptic meeting rooms when you've traveled so far around the world, it's just a shame," he said. On a recent trip to Shanghai, Mr. Patricof said he used a map to navigate the city on foot in search of the Propaganda Poster Art Center, which turned out to be a few rooms in the basement of a nearly deserted cinderblock apartment complex, guarded by a non-English-speaking watchman. "Trying to find it was a little daunting, but inside was a gorgeous display of 50 years of propaganda posters, and I had it all to myself," he said. On the way back to his hotel, he stopped at street vendors for pancakes with hot chilies, and duck blood soup. "The whole adventure, the uncertainty of it, was wonderful," he said. Mr. Patricof advised travelers to think about the sites they might want to visit, but also to take advantage of opportunities that arise. On a recent trip to Mumbai, Mr. Patricof stopped his taxi so he and a colleague could walk down a famous shopping street they were passing. "We were staring at all the fascinating things they were selling," he said, "and the shoppers were all staring at the tourists in business suits."