The Only Way to Travel

Travel has become a defining (and often depressing) part of business life, and the Web is bursting with sites that can help ease the headaches associated with business travel. We haven't found many travel-oriented "killer apps" yet (maybe we just have a great travel agent!), although the American Airlines Web site (http://www.aa.com) is one service that we and millions of other travelers can't seem to live without.

There is one travel site, though, that always keeps us moving in the right direction: MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com), which serves more than 2 million members -- and serves up more than 42 million page views per month.

MapQuest offers door-to-door driving directions for most cities within the continental United States and city-to-city directions (great for long trips) for cities throughout North America. You simply enter your origin and your destination, choose a route type (door-to-door or city-to-city), and indicate how you want the information to be displayed (overview map with text, text only, or turn-by-turn maps with text). Within seconds, you'll be able to generate a set of written directions, complete with exit numbers, total mileage, and estimated travel time.

The "Find A Map" option lets you design customized maps by entering information (address/intersection, state, zip code) or by selecting from the Quick Maps menu of 45 U.S. and international cities. Once you've created a map, you can print it, email it to a friend, or save it for viewing at a later time.

These days, business is all about change, and business travel is all about having to change plans. But nothing changes faster than the weather, which is why Weather.com (http://www.weather.com), the Web site of the much-beloved Weather Channel, is a site that we can't live without. Its simple and nifty "My Weather" feature lets you create your own weather-oriented home page right on the site. You can choose up to 5 cities from the 1,600 cities that the site tracks and up to 5 weather maps from the 175 maps that the site produces. Then, every time you sign on, you'll see the latest weather developments in and around your target cities. Another indispensable feature of "My Weather" is its neat flight-information tool. Just select an airline, enter a flight number, and specify your departure and destination airports. In a matter of moments, you'll know whether your flight is delayed.

All Work and No Play . . .

There's more to life than work, and there's more to the Web than sites that keep us up-to-date with the news or in touch with technology. We still like to catch a good flick once in a while -- and we always check out our computer screen before we head for the silver screen. MovieLink (http://www.movielink.com), a Web site produced by the MovieFone people, is the hottest ticket around.

MovieLink is easy to personalize. When you sign on for the first time, you are asked to enter your zip code. For the rest of that session -- and every time you return -- you see information only about theaters and show times in or near that zip-code area. The site lets you search by theater, title, star, type, or time. Once you choose a film, a show time, and a theater, just enter your credit-card data and the number of tickets that you want. The tickets will be waiting for you at the theater. No more getting turned away from sold-out shows. No more standing in line. Hey, where's the red carpet?

Action Item: More Sites to Surf

It's impossible to keep up with all of the resources that get added to the Web every day. But we don't want to stop discovering Web sites we can't live without. The solution? Netsurfer Digest, a weekly email published by Netsurfer Communications Inc., a Web-consulting firm based in Sunnyvale, California.

Netsurfer Digest is the smartest, savviest, and oldest scan of sites on the Web. You'll find at least one site to bookmark each week. But beware: To read the Digest, you'll need an email client that supports HTML. (The latest clients from Eudora, Netscape, and Microsoft all support that format.)

Coordinates: Netsurfer Digest, http://www.netsurf.com/nsd