Location-based applications are commonplace on all mobile devices, but really good apps that let you look further afield and plan a future trip are harder to come by. Microsoft's own Bing Travel service here spwans (in beta) its own Windows Phone application and it's rather slick. Not finished yet, but showing lots of promise.

From the Windows Phones Store description:

The Travel app, powered by Bing, provides you with destination guides, user travel photos, expert reviews, daily trip ideas, hotel listings and much more, all from the convenience of your phone. Check the status of airport arrivals/departures and pin a flight you are tracking to your start screen. Make last minute flight bookings after comparing the best prices from multiple providers. Find nearby hotels, read user reviews and browse hotel photos before making a booking directly from your phone.

There's obviously a clear money-making angle for Bing Travel's partners here, but that shouldn't diminish the application as a travel resource. Here's Bing Travel Beta in action:

An attractive front end gives way to a mass of online look-ups, in this case, finding a decent selection of hotels around my location.

There aren't currently photos of each hotel, but remember this is all in beta still. There are default booking options and other merchants tucked away on 'others'....

The front page gloss leads to content too, in this case following the 'History Buffs' suggestion...

Some of the trip ideas are rather obvious, hopefully these will become more esoteric in time? Each suggested trip has a hierarchy of extra pages...

... including plenty of official and third party photos to whet your appetite...

This being beta, there are a few rough edges - many attractions, restaurants and hotels merely bring up a blank page at the moment....

Booking through Bing Travel isn't totally seamless - you're currently taken through to this very messy desktop-aimed site layout....

In the style of a magazine, there are travel-related editorials too, culled from various sources....

'Destinations' seem to be specific places to visit within a 'trip', though the search box wasn't working in this beta (for me)....

Up to the minute Flight information is also available, shown here...

As an application to create travel lust, Bing Travel Beta works rather well, even if the prices on some of the booking forms have the opposite effect! The combination of gloss, editorial, status information and booking opportunities are tempting and make this something of a must-install (or at least it will be when finally released)

You can download Bing Travel Beta here, if it's available in your region.