The Super Chief of travel magazines, Condé Nast Traveler, focuses on "first-class" destinations with topics like "Above It All" (five places to visit from on high), or "Eat, Drink and Be Merry" (five cities to please your palate), while The Simple Traveler caters to off-roaders and backpackers, assuring younger, more active travelers that they can have just as much fun seeing the world from the "caboose."

Other familiar names on the electronic newsstand include traditional travel publications such as Arizona Highways and, for New England-bound tourists, Yankee Magazine. These and many others are now firmly hooked up to the Web, sharing their travel expertise with the world.

One of the earliest print publications to switch onto the Internet track is Travel and Leisure Magazine. Once an exclusive info-provider for America Online, it is now a master of its own domain and sets a standard for other Web travel magazines and e-zines to follow. This site, while not as showy as some I have reviewed, is certainly one of the more full-featured and, consistent with WWW tradition, gives a lot of free information in return for a chance to wave a few banner ads and sign up new subscribers. The index page lists a variety of feature articles which appeal to local, national and international tastes, and an unpretentious array of category buttons which lead to free travel information, weather data (a nonworking link on the day I visited), a past-issue search tool which looked for random key words as well as specific geographical areas, a trivia game for travel buffs, and the inevitable "hot deals" button which only the non-curious can resist. The button that pressed mine, however, was a link to a companion magazine called "Food & Wine," and even though it is not a travel magazine as such, it does include a monthly story on "gourmet travel" and is a fine Web site in its own right.

While there are more and more regional and general-interest travel magazines embarking on the World Wide Web, there is no shortage of publications dedicated to niche markets which target special groups with specific interests. Among the more absorbing of these is Getaways, a relatively new publication that focuses on weekend trips which, according to the editor, make up more that 50% of all vacations, and Maiden Voyages which "celebrates the voice and the perspective of the female traveler." As can be seen from these attractive Web sites, it is possible to entertain the eye and stimulate the imagination as well as to provide valuable travel information. For all this, we can accept a few annoying GIF animations and buttons to nowhere.

One thing that many of these electronic publications have in common is that they started with "paper and ink" and evolved to "zeros and ones" for telling their rose-colored travel tales. One of my favorite travel Web sites, however, that does not render every vacation destination with a patina of perfection is Lonely Planet. Although this site draws its expertise from the travel guide sector of the publishing industry, rather than as a monthly magazine or newsletter, its "tell it like it is" slant is refreshing in a world usually seen through tinted glasses.

After checking out these sites and many others that will pop up in the course of an hour's browse, you should have plenty of new travel bookmarks to help with future trip planning. So whether your next stop on the WWW Line is a Grand Central Station vacation or just a whistle-stop for the weekend, hook up to your favorite search engine, type in "recreational travel magazines" and hit the "Go" button. And just for luck, you might also shout, "All aboard!"

More Travel Magazines Online

CEO Traveler

Coastal Traveler Magazine

Country Inns

Destinations Magazine

Sierra Highway

Jim Crandall invites you to visit his Travel.line Web site, and welcomes your comments and input for its development. He can also be contacted at jcrandall@vcnet.com.