Map your travels and gas stops, too

By LAURA BLY

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 6, 2000

If you are among those who cannot pass up the lure of the open highway, despite high gasoline prices, you will find plenty of online resources to help chart your journey and even save a few bucks at the pump. A sampling:

Curious about the cost to fill your tank for a 600-mile run to Grandma's house? Check out the Gas Price Calculator at ABCNews.com's travel section (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/travel/). Using figures supplied by AAA's Fuel Gauge Report, this handy tool spits out an estimated cost based on mileage, type of vehicle and area of the country. One caveat: Because the site is not updated frequently, gas prices could be out of date.

One of several new sites aimed at steering consumers to the lowest gas prices, PriceHive.com (http://www.pricehive.com) lets users search for bargains by ZIP code, area code, city or state. Since the service's launch in March, visitors have posted more than 1,000 prices at more than 400 locations across the United States (though a solid majority are in the San Francisco Bay area).

In an effort to allay vacationers' worries about high fuel costs, an increasing number of travel companies are offering financial incentives to hit the road. Among them:

Hotel Reservations Network (http://www.hoteldiscounts.com), which promises to rebate up to $30 in gasoline charges to customers who book at least three nights at hotels in 50 major cities. The offer is good through Sept. 4, and hotels must be booked online.

Rand McNally's comprehensive site (http://www.randmcnally.com) does a lot more than peddle maps and globes. The online travel store sells luggage, travel accessories, software and games geared to avoiding those are-we-there-yet? whines. But one of the most useful features is the plan-a-trip section. Drivers can locate a specific address, get door-to-door directions and check weather forecasts along major interstates. Road construction alerts, available for the United States and Canada, are updated twice a month.

Along with steering motorists from point A to point B in the United States, Canada and a dozen European countries, Mapquest (http://www.mapquest.com) supplies airport maps, live traffic reports and DigitalCity destination profiles for major U.S. cities and hotel, along with restaurant recommendations from Mobil Travel Guides.

Electronic Explorer appears monthly. Comments are welcome at lsbly@aol.com.

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