It’s Not Too Late to Get Away for New Year’s Eve : Flights to Hawaii and Mexico are booked, but lodging can still be had in California and Las Vegas.

Are you the type who can’t bear to think about New Year’s Eve until you’ve bought the last Christmas gift? If you hadn’t dilly-dallied, you could be looking forward to ringing in the New Year at Kaanapali Beach. But forget that idea now. It’s not nice to taunt you with what might have been.

So let’s be practical. Can you still get out of town for New Year’s?

Yes. Maybe your options are somewhat limited, but there are a range possibilities still available.

The big crunch comes in booking flights, especially to Mexico and Hawaii, according to Mike Zaloudek at Excel Travel in Los Angeles. Even flights to Mexico City, not exactly a sunny resort, are booked up because the capital is the gateway for points south.

“Stray seats will pop up on the computer,” says agent Myrna Esteva at Overland Travel in Beverly Hills. “A group recently canceled a Hawaii trip and released a block of tickets,” she reports. But those seats were quickly gobbled up, and Esteva has a long waiting list for New Year’s flights to Acapulco. She’s had a little more luck finding spaces to Hawaii, especially for those who put off their returns until a few days into January.

Pat Mallon, an agent at Fiesta Travel Service in the Los Feliz area, agrees that Mexico is “almost impossible. Sometimes a consolidator will release tickets, but you never know when.” But there still are low-priced plane seats available to San Francisco for the New Year’s weekend, according to travel agent Esteva.

Jill Gustavson at San Francisco Reservations (800-677-1550), a San Francisco-based booking agency that represents hotels, motels, inns and B&Bs;, will be working through the afternoon of the 31st, finding rooms for New Year’s Eve visitors. The company handles bookings for all the hotels in San Francisco, monitoring both room availability and rates. They are also keeping track of New Year’s Eve parties around the city. The Fairmont has rooms for $139 for arrivals on Dec 31.

“There will be several parties going on in the hotel that night,” says Gustavson, who recommends calling a hotel’s concierge as soon as you book the room and getting him or her started on party plans.

The Hotel Nikko (415-394-1111) has rooms beginning at $105 a night with a late checkout on New Year’s Day at 3 p.m. Guests can work off the final excesses of 1992 in the hotel’s fitness center, pool and sauna at no extra charge.

The Westin St. Francis (415- 397-7000) has rooms for $117-$159--, which is less than the cost of the hotel’s fanciest parties in Victor’s on the 32nd floor. The extravaganza costs $195-$250 per person. The hotel also has several less pricey parties that night.

The Holiday Inn at Fisherman’s Wharf (415-771-9000) has rooms at $77 per night and seating at its seafood buffet ($175 per couple).

For budget travelers, rooms at The Californian, a European-style hotel in the Union Square area, are $49 a night.

If the point of your getaway is to get away from the mayhem, Carmel is your place. No live music is permitted within town limits, not even a piano bar. The B&Bs; are fully booked, according to the Tourist Information Center (408-624-1711), a Carmel-based reservations agency, but rooms are still available in motels, hotels and inns. The center will be booking for New Year’s weekend until the 30th. They also book New Year’s Eve dinner reservations. Those in search of a midnight toast can head for the Hog’s Breath Inn or General Store (both bars).

The center also books reservations for the rest of the peninsula (where live music is permitted, even encouraged). The Hyatt Regency Monterey is offering a nostalgic celebration, “As Time Goes By,” for $93 per person. Party-goers may book rooms at a special rate of $79 per night, all weekend.

California Riviera 800 (800-621- 0500) books rooms for 40 California B&Bs; along the coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego and can still find lodging for New Year’s weekend. “But it’s hunt and peck at this point,” says office manager Mark Wyley. Expect to pay $85-$150 per room per night. Santa Barbara B&Bs; are tightly booked, according to Wyley, but other beach areas, such as Laguna Beach and Dana Point, have scattered openings. San Diego Hotel Reservations (800-728-3227), which represents 250 hotels in the greater San Diego area, reports good availability in rooms for the next week or so, with the real crunch probably hitting a few days before New Year’s Eve. Reservations agent Julie Kruse says that “a lot of people like to book rooms in downtown hotels and walk over to the nearby Gaslamp Quarter,” with its 45 restaurants and bars and plenty of party feeling spilling out in the street.

The reservations service is offering special rates at the Horton Grand ($109) and the new Pan Pacific ($89), as well as other hotels. They will be working until midday on the 31st to book rooms.

One of the biggest parties in town, geared toward singles, is at the U.S. Grant Hotel downtown, where a Brazilian extravaganza (is that redundant?) rings in the New Year. The hotel has three-night packages at $144-$169 per person, which include room, New Year’s Eve dinner in either the Garden Room or the Grant Grill and all the sambas you can handle in the lobby-bar afterward.

The Rosarito Beach Hotel (800- 343-8582) still has rooms but there’s a catch. Guests are required to buy tickets for the hotel’s dinner party ($45 per person). Room rates are $69-$149 per night.

Catalina could be the safest place to carouse on New Year’s Eve. Except for a few taxis, most everyone will be walking instead of driving. The place to be is the Casino for the black tie, big-band dinner-dance ($100 per person). Box office tickets are gone, but hotels and inns planned ahead and have bought tickets for their guests.

Catalina Island Inn (310-510- 1623) has both Casino tickets and rooms ($95-$160 per night). The San Francisco Victorian-style inn has 36 rooms and is offering a $30 discount on third-night stays. Be sure to reserve for the Casino bash when you book your room.

The Catalina Chamber of Commerce (310-510-1520) keeps track of available space and can refer callers to hotels and inns that still have rooms.

Flights to Las Vegas are already well booked except for top-priced seats. If cost is not an issue, you can still fly to Vegas. If not, drive. The private booking agency Las Vegas Tourist Bureau (800-522- 9555) expects to have rooms for New Year’s Eve available until around Christmas. Booking after that will be iffy, with accommodations harder to nail than New Year’s Eve parties in hotel showrooms. Expect to pay at least $125 per room per night. Showroom festivities start at $100 per person and include the show, dinner and champagne.

In the Palm Springs area, some hotels are already fully booked for New Year’s Eve (the Desert Springs Marriott and Palm Springs Hyatt Regency Suites, for example), while others are still saying, “Come on down.”

Palm Springs Hotel and Condo Reservations (800-323-4786), which books for 88 hotels and condos from Palm Springs to Indio, still has a good number of hotel rooms available. One- and two-bedroom condos are open, but three-bedroom condos have been snapped up. The smaller condos run $175-$300 per night.

The Marquis Hotel and Villas, in Palm Springs (800-223-1050), is offering special deals to entice New Year’s visitors to stay over an extra night or two. Room rates for New Year’s Eve are $110-$185. For guests staying two nights, the rate stays the same. But for three-night stays, the third night goes down to $80-$170. All prices are based on Dec. 30-31 check-ins. No special parties are planned at the hotel, but there will be a $30-per-person dinner and the concierge can book guests into parties around town.

The Ritz-Carlton in Rancho Mirage (800-241-3333 or 619-321- 8282) is making it easy for families to celebrate the New Year (almost) together. The hotel has baby sitters available to come to the room, and their new Kids’ Center, open on New Year’s Eve from 6 p.m. to well after midnight, offers dinner and Disney movies ($25 per child). The hotel’s special room rate is $149 per night (regular rate: $350), including a continental breakfast on New Year’s Day. The rate is good through Jan. 28, and children under 10 stay free and eat free. The hotel plans two celebration dinners, in the Cafe ($55 per person) and the Club Grill ($95 per person).

Big Bear Reservations (714-866- 5753) has hotels, motels, condos and cabins still available, ranging from $75 to $375 a night, even though “it’s the busiest week of the year,” according to Mark Hannah. There’s a four-night minimum for most places. A studio room in the ski area runs $75 per night, a lake-front cabin $225 and up. Other cabins in the woods, with fireplaces, start at $165.

(P.S. Forget Death Valley unless you camp. Both the Furnace Creek Inn and Furnace Creek Ranch are booked solid.)