TRAVEL INSIDER : For Hotel Bargains, Take a Trip Between Holidays : Accommodations: Places that are booked for New Year’s often have many rooms available at discounted rates from Thanksgiving on.

Hotels have always been busy on New Year’s Eve, and even the limping economy hasn’t changed that this year. But the wily traveler--or traveling family--would do well to consider the week before.

Instead of congregating at someone’s home over this Christmas holiday, think about hitting the road instead, avoiding the usual cooking and housework, and taking advantage of hotel holiday specials.

If you do, not only might you have the gratitude of a habitually overworked holiday hostess (or host) and an under-worked travel agent and hotelier, you’re also likely to have a chance at bargain rates, and a wide variety of packages to choose from.

This is not a freshly minted idea. Cruise ships, ski resorts and many warm-weather destinations already take in heavy holiday trade, and Joan Gillespie, manager of Travel Travel in La Jolla, suggested recently that “more and more people are not staying home” for the holidays every year.

Robert Uhrich, manager of Gulliver’s Travel Agency in Hollywood, last week offered this counsel to anyone considering a hotel stay this holiday season: “Give up on Honolulu and give up on most of Mexico. As we speak, most of those areas all sold out already.” Many Caribbean and Floridian destinations are in the same boat.

But for most of the United States, the days between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve are rich with special offers and potential travel bargains.

California, for all the allure of its mild winters, is a big part of this. In a survey of 1,183 hotels in this state, the California Hotel & Motel Assn. found an occupancy rate of 48.1% last December, compared with 63.9% for the rest of the year. Association general manager Bill Howe said December is generally the worst month of the year for California hoteliers. Circumstances are similar at many otherwise popular destinations.

Joan Gillespie confessed that she goes to Las Vegas every year the week before Christmas “and I’m there by myself. They’re practically giving rooms away. . . . And anybody who wanted to go to New York or Washington or Boston or San Francisco--that would probably be no problem at all.”

Often-frenetic New Orleans, reported Le Meridien Hotel sales manager Tim Burke, is “not busy at all” for Christmas and most of December, until business heats up for New Year’s Eve.

In short, suggested Robert Uhrich, “just about any place” in the continental U.S. outside the sun belt and ski circuit is a bargain over Christmas. Destinations that already have a tradition of Christmastime traffic may be worth investigating, too; though they may not be the cheapest option, they tend to have the most elaborately developed packages.

A sampling from California:

Eureka. From Nov. 27 to Jan. 1, the 105-room, 70-year-old, Tudor-style Eureka Inn (800-862-4906) in Northern California has set “Christmas Celebration” rates at $70 for single or double rooms. Surrounding festivities include madrigal singers, karaoke contests, caroling and chartered rides on the North Coast Railroad, which runs between Eureka and nearby Arcata (adult fare: $10). The hotel’s undiscounted rates for double rooms usually begin at $115 nightly.

Palm Springs. From Dec. 18-26, the 110-unit Oasis Water Resort (800-247-4664) is offering two-bedroom, two-bath villa condominiums at $189 nightly, with a free Christmas turkey dinner delivered to the villa, and a pair of free tramway tickets. Minimum stay is three nights. Lower rates are available for longer stays. Regular rates normally begin at $229 nightly.

San Diego County. The Rancho Bernardo Inn (800-542-6096), a 287-room golf-and-tennis resort about 35 miles north of downtown San Diego, annually sets an elaborate schedule of holiday events, ranging this year from a “winter carnival” on Dec. 20 to a Dickensian dinner served by costumed staff members on Christmas Eve. From Dec. 23-31, hotel rates (ordinarily published at $175 nightly and up) are discounted to $133 per person, double occupancy, with free tennis privileges and breakfast and dinner included on each full day of a guest’s stay. The rate for golfers: $144 (and the inn’s course is open Christmas day). Minimum stay is two nights in most cases.

San Francisco. The Mark Hopkins Inter-Continental (800-327-0200) downtown has a “holiday luxury and shopping” package that includes lodging, a certificate for room upgrade on a future visit, and a variety of special offers from Saks Fifth Avenue. The package rate is $129 nightly for a double room, available now through Dec. 29. On Christmas Eve, the hotel’s Nob Hill restaurant offers caroling and a five-course dinner at $58 per person. Lunch and brunch buffets are also offered at the Nob Hill and Top of the Mark restaurants on Christmas Day. (The Top of the Mark brunch runs $44 for adults; the Nob Hill lunch, $32.) The hotel’s regular rates for double rooms usually begin at $200 nightly.

The 1,500-room San Francisco Marriott Hotel at Mission and Fourth streets is also offering a weekend holiday theater package: a double room and two tickets to American Conservatory Theater’s production of “A Christmas Carol” at the nearby Orpheum Theatre, along with discounts at several Union Square stores. The price: $149 per night, double occupancy. Regular rates are usually $205. The “Christmas Carol” performances covered are Nov. 28 and Dec. 11, 12, 18, 19 and 26. The same package, without theater tickets, runs $109 nightly, Nov. 25-29 and Dec. 11-13 and 18-30.

Elsewhere in the United States:

Arizona. The Pointe Hilton Resorts (800-934-1000), a trio of Phoenix-area luxury hotels at Squaw Peak, Tapatio Cliffs and South Mountain that usually rely heavily on convention business, are offering many of their 1,800 suites for $99 nightly through Jan. 16. (The regular rates for those suites, which resume Jan. 17, begin at $205 nightly.) Over the same dates, the Hilton resort at Squaw Peak is offering a three-day, two-night “family fiesta” package--starting at $360--that includes two-story villa accommodations, enrollment in the resort’s “Coyote Camp” for children and various other lures. The resort also has planned choir performances, marshmallow roasts, hayrides and luminaria displays.

Florida. The 1,028-room Buena Vista Palace (800-327-2990) in Walt Disney World Village is advertising a “12 days of Christmas Fun” package beginning Dec. 14. Room rates under that program run $79 nightly, double occupancy (usually in a suite), and include daily cider and caroling, Christmas cookies and milk, and a ginger bread house construction demonstration. Rates for double rooms usually begin at $159.

Louisiana. At Le Meridien Hotel in New Orleans (800-543-4300), where regular rates begin at $150, “Creole Christmas” rates from Dec. 11-28 will offer double rooms for $95 nightly, breakfast included.

New York. The Sagamore (800-358-3585), a 350-room historic resort 60 miles north of Albany, offers a Christmas package from Dec. 24-29, renting rooms from $107-$157 per couple, per night. Snow is expected. Holiday dinners are also planned, but aren’t included in the package price. Rates at the hotel usually begin at $158 nightly.

Washington, D.C. One block from the National Christmas Tree on Pennsylvania Avenue, the 365-room Willard Inter-Continental Hotel (800-327-0200) is offering some of its double rooms now through Jan. 3 for $179 nightly on weekends. For most of that time (except Monday nights), guests can select a “Christmas Carol” package and for $230 a couple, receive a night’s accommodations, two tickets to the Ford Theater production of Dickens’ most famous play and free parking. (Rates ordinarily begin at $330 nightly for double rooms.) In addition, the hotel’s Willard Room restaurant will serve a four-course, $65-a-head Christmas dinner.

Of course, there are those few remaining travelers for whom money is no concern whatsoever. Come Christmas, you may find a couple of them at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach (800-755-0690).

There, management has concocted a “Holiday Fanta-sea” package, available Dec. 17-23, which calls for arriving guests to be met by carolers, escorted to their lodgings in the elaborately decorated Presidential Suite, then transported by limousine to a yacht that will carry them through the Newport Harbor Boat Parade of Lights. Dinner and champagne are to be served on board. The next day, the hotel has arranged a private shoppers’ tour of Neiman-Marcus, a horse-drawn carriage, and an audience with Santa Claus. The package price for two days and one night: $5,000.