Thoroughly tested by Dave Ruocco, a tech-savvy stay-at-home dad, Road Trips for Families offers an on-line review of the Bento personal database app by FileMaker.

Created to entertain even the most “bored” kid, Road Trips for Families suggest five road-trip friendly iPhone apps for your next family vacation. Be gone, “Are we there yet?” Behold the iPhone!

A new trend in family vacation planning is iPhone travel apps, or virtual travel guide books. Authored by area gurus, travel apps offer an in-depth look at a particular region or vacation destination. Apps are more content rich and interactive than traditional guide books, and bring the itinerary planning right along in the car with you.

Our road tripping family gets asked all the time for suggestions on destinations, attractions and restaurants. And, honestly, it can be hard to remember details about each road trip. Family Rambling has solved that with their handy Travel Journal.

Back in the day, parents handed fussy toddlers their keys, a teething toy or maybe a rattle. Now, we hand over the iPhone. The most common question asked by parents who look for travel advice isn’t about what highway to travel or even about kid-friendly luggage. It’s about iPhone apps. So, we decided to do some research and let our fingers do the downloading as we tried out some of the top contenders and a few more obscure apps. Here are our recommendations for the apps worth downloading. Let the happy road trips begin!

The new Olympus FE-4020 ($149.99) and FE-47 ($119.99) models must have been designed with road trips in mind. They come with 14 megapixels and up to 5x optical zoom as well as a host of on-camera features to make taking pictures simple — no matter what.

One of the top questions I’m asked when I do an interview goes something like: “How do I keep the kids entertained in the car?” So, for expert advice on the gadgets, I talked to Jody Halsted at Have Kid Will Travel.