HIGH-TECH TRAVELER : Programs That’ll Send You : From On-Line Computer Networks to Interactive CD-ROMs, the Brave New World of Travel-Information-on-Demand Is Here

Part of the fun of traveling is learning about your destination. And in the last year or so, travel information has become more timely and portable than ever, thanks to a convenient marriage between travel expertise and high-tech communications. Today’s computer-friendly travelers can get fresh information in a number of ways, from on-line networks to interactive CD-ROMs that give the term “armchair travel” entirely new meaning.

How many times in your travels have you gone to a spot that was highly touted in your guidebook, only to find it less than wonderful? The chef quit two months before your visit, the ownership or location changed, or--just your luck--you discover only after knocking on its locked door that the place has gone belly up. As an inveterate traveler, I’ve longed for a solution to these travel-guide blues.

Let me say at the outset that I’m the last person you’d call a “techie.” As a writer, I used a computer for years for word processing without ever considering its other possible applications. But last year I moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco and found myself closer to Silicon Valley, where people spend a lot of time thinking about creative uses for computers. The following unscientific guided tour makes no claims to completeness (new productsenter the field practically every month), but these products caught my eye in a recent, random survey.

My first discovery was a travel database company called Worldview Systems. Described last year in ComputerLetter, a high-tech business publication, as “the Lamborghini of electronic travel guides,” Worldview was founded in 1986 and, according to the company, uses a network of more than 500 worldwide correspondents who contribute travel-related information to 30 editors at Worldview’s San Francisco headquarters. Their input, plus items culled from local publications around the world, and information from travel guidebooks and other sources, goes into a database covering 170 destinations. Worldview’s basic product, called a “Travel Update,” is a short, individualized report on a destination.

The way it works is that you tell them your interests (rock ‘n’ roll, golf, museums, folk dancing, fine dining etc.), your destination and the dates you’ll be traveling. They pull pertinent information from the database, and mail or fax you a hard-copy report based on your travel needs. What makes the service appealing is that the database contains at least as much information as 170 individual travel guides, according to Worldview’s editor-in-chief Helen Zia, but you get only what you care about (or think, pre-departure, that you care about). So instead of having to lug a whole book about Spain with you to Madrid, for example, you can just take the information you want, tailored to the things you are interested in at the time you are going.

Worldview’s data is available several different ways. Travel agents were the first to use it, according to company president Steven Baloff, to create individual trip plans for their clients. (It was offered to agents in 1991 through a collaboration with the SABRE Travel Information Network, one of the computer systems used by many agencies.) “Travel Updates” also can be ordered directly from Worldview via phone or fax for about $10 for the first city, about $7 per additional city. And subscribers to the computer networks AppleLink or the Bloomberg Financial Service have access to Worldview via their computer screens. For lower-tech types, each new Fodor travel guidebook published after this September will include a questionnaire in the back that a reader can fill out and send to Worldview. Within 48 hours of receiving your destination request, according to Worldview, it will generate a personalized “Travel Update” to be mailed or faxed to you.

Perusing a “Travel Update” for a customer going to London in late July, I found information about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical, “Sunset Boulevard,” and Peter Shaffer’s latest play, “The Gift of the Gorgon,” complete with tips on the best way to get tickets. Among dozens of other listings, there were concise reports on such July events as the International Air Tattoo (not flying tattoo artists; it’s the planet’s largest military air display); a sale of famous European works of art at Sotheby’s; a rock concert by Depeche Mode, and a “best-of” restaurant list in several price categories. Worldview does not take advertising, according to editor Zia.

A product called Local Expert combines data from Worldview with computerized maps. Put out by Strategic Mapping, Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., Local Expert covers 100 cities worldwide and is available on computer disk, making it a good tool for those who carry laptop or notebook computers when they travel. Basically, what you see when you put it in your computer is a menu of maps and places of interest to travelers (theaters, hotels, art galleries, restaurants, etc.) for a given destination. Information is accessed by clicking onsites labeled on a map. If you want hotels, for example, there are several options highlighted on a map of a given area, with short descriptions, prices, phone numbers, etc.

“We try to make it as concierge-like as possible,” explains Joan Hammel, Strategic Mapping’s public relations manager.

A new capability that came on-line in September allows those with the software program, Windows, to use Local Expert to plot the distance, either walking or driving, between two locations. It will even set up a tour for you, Hammel says. “Say you have a whole day of business appointments in a city you have never been to; it will figure out the most convenient way to get from point to point.” If mere data bores you and you’d prefer a more complete picture of your dream vacation, Lee Foster’s various software programs might be of interest. The author of a book, and numerous magazine and newspaper articles on travel, Foster began publishing his travel stories electronically in 1984, long before most of his counterparts knew the difference between a bit and a byte. His articles are available, for a per-minute fee, to subscribers to the CompuServe computer network under the names “West Coast Travel” and “Adventures In Travel.” Each title has numerous articles within it: Under Adventures in Travel, for example, there are about 100 choices on places ranging from Asia and Australia to Clinton’s Arkansas. Calling them up is just like reading an article over your computer screen. The advantage over a book, of course, is that you can print out what you want, or download it to a disk to save it for later use. And if you have your laptop with you on a trip, you can access the information via CompuServe.

Although Foster’s articles are noticeably general in their approach to the subjects they cover, CompuServe subscribers can send Foster computer messages asking a specific question about places they are interested in. He sends the answers out over the network once a month. Foster’s articles are also available on disk for either Apple or IBM-compatible computers at $19.95. His latest effort is a CD-ROM presentation called “California Traveler” that covers the whole state with more than 1,000 still photographs and as much information, according to Foster, as 1 1/2 guidebooks.

CD-ROM discs look just like music CDs and are played in a CD-ROM drive that is now standard equipment in many new Apple computers and can be purchased for older models (either Apple or IBM-compatible) for about $300. What’s unique about CD-ROMs is that they can hold an enormous amount of information, including videos, music, photography, narration, text and maps--all of them elements in “California Traveler.”

The first thing you see after putting Foster’s CD into a computer drive is the author, standing atop a Northern California ridge, making a sweeping introduction to California as the camera pans 360 degrees around him. Next, a grid of brilliantly colored photographs comes into view: a Joshua Tree National Monument desert photo, a picture of the Sierra Nevada taken from Yosemite, and so on. You move your cursor or your mouse to the one that appeals to you to open each section of the narrative. The sections all have video introductions little icons denoting maps, photo montages and texts that can be accessed at any time. Most of Foster’s information seems to be mainstream, geared to the average family traveler. “California Traveler” is published and distributed by Ebook, a Union City, Calif.-based company that also markets multimedia storybooks for children.

Interoptica Publishing Limited of Hong Kong also publishes CD-ROM-based travel materials. Their programs include “Great Cities of the World,” volumes one and two; “Great Wonders of the World” (in two parts: Natural and Man-made); “Journey to the Heart of Japan,” and “Astonishing Asia.” The brainchild of husband-and-wife team, Simon and Catherine Winchester, respectively a former editor at Conde Nast Traveler magazine and a computer scientist, Interoptica seems to specialize in mixing exotic documentary coverage with handy travel information.

“Great Cities of the World” is probably the most tourist-useful product, and cruising through the second volume (which covers Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Chicago, Berlin, San Francisco, Toronto, Rome and Jerusalem), I was impressed with the lush look and the intelligent, well-written commentaries by Winchester, Pico Iyar and Jan Morris--respected travel writers all. Like Foster’s CD, this one utilizes pictures and videos to drawyou into a subject. You then can click on particular icons, pictures or words to delve deeper. Deeper is where I encountered some problems. Looking into San Francisco, a city I’m well acquainted with, it became clear that some of the information was either out of date or simply wrong. Under “night life,” the restaurant L’Etoile was listed, even though it closed several years ago. A fuddy-duddyish place like the Carnelian Room was listed alongside the ultra-hip Paradise Lounge and the Tosca Cafe (an insider’s hangout), without any defining explanations. I found “Astonishing Asia,” the company’s latest release, much more to my taste. Although it doesn’t have many tips on where to stay or to eat, it’s an armchair traveler’s delight, based as it is on the eclectic work of Earle and Nazima Kowall. The Kowalls spent 14 years as photojournalists, roaming through Asia’s most exotic places, and in this CD, among other things, you can witness devil dancers in Sri Lanka, see a snake temple in Malaysia or meet the Monkey God in Hong Kong.

Armchair adventure is also the subject of what is probably the most beautiful CD-ROM in existence, “From Alice To Ocean,” about the yearlong camel trek a young woman named Robyn Davidson made from Alice Springs across the entire Australian outback to the Indian Ocean. Photographer Rick Smolan, who documented the journey when it happened 15 years ago for National Geographic, was deeply impressed by the experience and it remained in his mind during his subsequent years shooting for Time and Life magazines. Finally, with funding from both Kodak and Apple, he was able to persuade Davidson to use material from her book about the journey, “Tracks,” to narrate “From Alice to Ocean.” The result is an extraordinarily entertaining combination of Davidson’s witty, insightful writing and Smolan’s exquisite pictures.

“I wanted to give people the illusion that they’re having a conversation with Robyn or me,” says Smolan. “So I decided to develop this in couch-potato mode, which means that if you don’t do anything, Robyn tells you the story, but if you want to interrupt, there is one key that you touch for a moment and you can ask a question (from a list programmed into the CD).”

You can hear birdcalls, Aboriginal music and other sound effects in the background as Davidson tells you in her own words what it was like to slog through cloudbursts with frightened camels, or to cross immense red-dirt landscapes with no one to know if she’d died on route. At any time in the narrative, viewers can click icons denoting maps, photo tips, etc.

With more than 500,000 copies sold, “From Alice to Ocean” is the most widely distributed CD for Apple computer users, and Smolan plans to make it available in a DOS-compatible (IBM-compatible) system this fall.

New CD-ROMs and other computer-friendly guides are popping up more frequently now that large numbers of people are beginning to demand the software. When Lee Foster began putting his stories on CompuServe, the network had only 20,000 subscribers--it now has 1.2 million. Future possibilities are literally endless, especially with new, high-powered palmtop devices coming on the market.

DATABANK: Technology at Your Fingertips

“Travel Updates” are available from Worldview Systems, 114 Sansome St., Suite 700, San Francisco 94104; telephone (800) 799-9609, fax (800) 799-9619. Reports are $9.95 for the first city, $6.95 per extra city, plus shipping/handling charges for mail and fax.

“Local Expert” is available at computer software stores and from Strategic Mapping, 3135 Kifer Road, Santa Clara 95051; tel. (800) 442-8887, fax (408) 970-1864. The core softwear program costs $59.

Lee Foster’s “West Coast Travel” and “Adventures in Travel” are available on computer disk for $19.95 each through Lee Foster, tel. (510) 549-2202. Foster’s “California Traveler” CD-ROM, $29.95, is available at Egghead Software or through Ebook, 32970 Alvarado-Niles Road, Suite 704, Union City, Calif. 94587; tel. (510) 429-1331, fax (510) 429-1394.

Interoptica Publishing’s CD-ROMs are $49.95 each, available at computer stores and from Interoptica Publishing Ltd., 300 Montgomery St., Suite 201, San Francisco 94104; tel. (415) 788-8788, fax (415) 788-8886.

The “From Alice to Ocean” CD-ROM is sold as a package with Rick Smolan’s book of the same name for $39, tel. (800) 800-2665.