I first learned about HotelPal from my friend Anil, who publishes the travel blog foXnoMad.com. This free application for the iPhone and iPod Touch allows users to search for accommodations at more than 100,000 hotels, inns, resorts, and B&B’s worldwide, making it’s among the most complete hotel databases available anywhere.

HotelPal app for the iPhone and iPod Touch

Immediately, I downloaded it and browsed around the interface. It seemed fairly easy to use: I simply needed to choose a hotel, type in my billing info, and tap “Book Now.” This week I finally had an opportunity to test it out during my tour of the Tampa Bay area. While my experience with the application was excellent, I found myself using it in a totally different manner than the developer intended.

Because I prefer not to be locked into structured itineraries, I rarely pre-book accommodations before leaving home, and this instance was no different. I left Sarasota at 4:30 p.m. in order to have plenty of time to find a hotel, check in, and still on time for my 8 p.m. Yo-Yo Ma concert this past Wednesday. Once I was in the neighborhood of the concert hall, I whipped out my iPhone, opened HotelPal, and clicked on “search.” The iPhone’s GPS automatically determined my geographic location and returned a list of nearby hotels and motels that had rooms available, sorted by price. For each, I could view full-screen photos of the property and see real-time availability and rates. With a touch of the screen, I could change the sort criteria from price to location, or even flip to a map where red pins represented the location of each property.

Rather than booking online, I simply chose the cheapest motel, confirmed that the photos looked OK, and drove to the property. On my first night, the lowest priced rooms were at Days Inn in Clearwater, advertised at $38 per night. Sure enough, when I walked-in, I was offered the price quoted in HotelPal. The following night it was a Days Inn in St. Petersburg, which HotelPal represented as $55 per night. Here, the manager quoted me $59, but when I showed her the HotelPal price it was honored.

Using HotelPal sure beats driving up and down the street and stopping at half a dozen hotels and motels to see of they have availability and are affordable. Not only has it simplified the process of finding accommodations, it has already saved me a lot of money. I love this application and anyone else who prefers unscheduled travel will too!