Good California Web Sites

Just as California offers more vacation options than rush-hour taillights on the San Diego Freeway, cyberspace is jammed with thousands of commercial, nonprofit and personal Web sites peddling the joys of traveling in the Golden State.

Here’s a sampling of bookmark-worthy examples, encompassing everything from San Francisco shopping to San Bernardino ski slopes.

California Office of Tourism (www.gocalif.com): The mother lode of official travel information provides maps, limited online lodging reservations, a calendar of events and links to visitor bureaus and attractions across the state. One gee-whiz feature: Virtual tours of close to 500 California bed-and-breakfast inns.

California State Parks (parks.ca.gov): Organized by region, this basic rundown of park facilities and services includes a link to ReserveAmerica (www.reserveamerica.com), where campers can make online reservations at nearly 100 California parks.

California Smart Traveler (www.smart-traveler.com): Caltrans’ “transportation portal” provides links to airport information, bus and ferry schedules, bicycle paths and more for Greater Los Angeles, Ventura, San Diego, San Francisco, Yosemite and Sacramento. A separate home page link lets you check on road conditions and closures statewide.

Best Western California (www.bestwesterncalifornia.com): Checking out a 360-degree vista of pink curtains and a flowered bedspread at the Visalia Inn may not charge your vacation batteries, but this useful site offers more than panoramic views of member lodgings--including online reservations, maps and links to area attractions.

Southland Ski Server (www.skisocal.org): Described by Orange County-based Web master Mark Bixby as the Net’s “most obsessively complete source for information about Southern California skiing,” this one-man volunteer effort is a must-read for schussers headed to the local mountains. You’ll find user-submitted trip reports and snow conditions, plus links to resort home pages.

Yosemite Online (www.yosemite.org): Operated by the nonprofit Yosemite Assn., this evocative site supplies plenty of practical information, including recent park news from area newspapers. But it also dazzles wannabe visitors with panoramic photos and live cam shots, audio clips of vintage Yosemite songs, and diary excerpts from 19th century tourists.

DogFriendly.com (www.dogfriendly.com): Though this Placerville-based site has branched out to include other areas of the country, California remains a major focus. You’ll find listings (and some photographs) of Fido-friendly lodgings, stores, parks, beaches, attractions, restaurants and events, along with tips on doggy travel etiquette.

San Francisco Bay Guardian’s Best of the Bay (www.bestofthebay.com): Want the skinny on The City’s most sublime shabu shabu (a Japanese beef dish) or the top spot to watch fog roll in? Check out the Bay Guardian’s 1999 collection of nearly 450 decidedly eclectic “bests,” chosen by the alternative weekly’s staff and readers. (Try the Heavenly Hot Restaurant for shabu shabu, and Quarry Hill for fog-viewing.)

A Guide to California’s Big Sur (https://jrabold.net/bigsur): Created by Oakland resident John Rabold, this noncommercial site doesn’t boast flashy graphics or dazzling prose. But it includes a series of area maps, tells you where to find such basics as public restrooms, telephones and gas stations along the sparsely populated, 90-mile-long section of California Highway 1, and has links to Big Sur hotels, campgrounds and attractions.

Karen Brown’s Guides (www.karenbrown.com/california/): The Web site for longtime guidebook publisher and California innkeeper Karen Brown is clearly designed to sell her books, and the site’s 120 recommended inns have paid a fee to be included. But Brown’s truncated profiles, sorted by town, price and inn name and based on personal visits, are a useful starting point for travelers on the California muffins-and-comforters trail.

SignOn San Diego (www.citysearch.signonsandiego.com/San_Diego/Visitors_Info/) The San Diego Union-Tribune’s SignOn San Diego’s visitors section includes beaches and golf guides, plus restaurant reviews, a hotel finder, weekend excursions and top picks. (A sample from the “20 cool places worth discovering” list: the Desert Garden in Balboa Park.)

Los Angeles Times Travel (www.latimes.com/travel): Along with extensive archives of previous Times columns and features, the Times’ Web site links to Arthur Frommer’s daily Web newsletter and Southern California air fare specials from Smarter Living. The California section incorporates recent Weekend Escapes and an index of past stories.

Bay Area Traveler (www.sfgate.com/travel): SF Gate, the online incarnation of San Francisco’s Chronicle Publishing Co., delivers a solid travel site that goes far beyond newspaper reprints. You’ll find everything from entertainment listings to a guide to 10 East Bay neighborhoods, while SF Gate’s Bay Area Backroads (www.bayareabackroads.com) supplies stories and video from the popular television show of the same name.

Wild California (www.wildcalifornia.com): Aimed at outdoor-oriented Southern Californians who feel trapped in an angry hornet’s nest, this self-described slow-tech production offers reviews, directions and tips for four secluded fishing and camping sites in the Eastern and Southern Sierra. In return, it implores readers to preserve these places and guard them like precious gems. All it takes is one rowdy bunch of drunken dirt-bikers to ruin a weekend of seclusion.

The Exploratorium (www.exploratorium.com): You’d expect one of the country’s best-known science museums to produce a snazzy Web site, and San Francisco’s Exploratorium doesn’t disappoint. Order admission tickets, toys, books and gifts online, check out the weather, and get a cerebral workout with the site’s interactive brain teasers.