From Issue #2 , Page #30

Planning a road trip? It will be a lot less painful with one of these gadgets.

I am a road warrior. Nashville to Philadelphia in one day? Done it, thanks to my radar detector and a heavy right foot.

It is a great time to be a road warrior, though. The days of making a few compilation tapes, tossing a six-pack of Mountain Dew in a cooler and hitting the Interstates with the family are history. Why leave home if you can’t bring the comforts of home (theater) with you?

Audio Anywhere

These days, car audio has exploded beyond your old 8-tracks. Now even 40-disc trunk CD changers are passé when you can carry your entire music collection on an Apple iPod ($199 to $399).

If the extra wiring or the worry of having a small and easily stolen device on the road isn’t for you, Sony offers the MEX-1HD, an in-dash radio/CD player with a hard-drive audio server built in ($1,550). It’s got a 10-GB hard drive, enough room for a week of 24/7 driving without repeating a song.

If you want more than just your own tunes, satellite radio from either XM or Sirius offers hundreds of channels of music, talk and even sports, including live NFL games, nationwide. Each service runs for between $10 and $13 a month, plus add-on units for your current car audio system cost about $200.

Video Highlights

Okay, you’re not supposed to watch video while driving, but anyone who’s been stuck in traffic on the 405 freeway in Los Angeles knows the truth: everyone seems to be doing it.

Whether you’re hauling the kids in the minivan or shooting up the coast in your roadster, there’s a video option for you. If all you care about is the front seat, an in-dash screen, such as Pioneer’s AVH-P7500DVD ($1,699), might be for you. It not only comes with a seven-inch LCD screen that pops out of the head unit, but it even plays high-resolution DVD-Audio discs, still a rarity for a car unit. Like your home theater system, it plays DVDs as well as outputs a Dolby Digital soundtrack to an in-car 5.1-channel theater audio system.

Get Lost!

A lot of guys have a deep, dark secret: They get lost, and they hate to ask for directions. Thanks to global positioning satellites (GPS), it’s now pretty simple to get yourself found without the shame of asking a clerk at a roadside convenience store for directions.

Blaupunkt’s TravelPilot DX-V ($2,239.95) is a great example of the state of the art in dash navigation. The TravelPilot uses a combination of GPS, a gyrocompass and speed sensing to find your position with an accuracy of 15 feet. It gives you verbal commands and warnings of upcoming turns, as well as a display that shows a map, updated in real time.

If that’s a little pricey for you, Magellan makes Meridian Gold Handheld GPS ($299), which has built-in roadmaps of either North America or Europe. With a built-in LCD display, this unit is waterproof and, yes, it even floats if you get really lost.

If you bring along a laptop or PDA, you can use Microsoft’s Streets & Trips 2004 ($32.99) to map out your route; it will even work with most added GPS PC cards for real-time navigation.

Playing Around

Nintendo’s GameBoy and GameBoy Advance dominated in-car gaming for more than a decade, but Sony’s PSOne ($149) changed the rules. With its built-in screen and car adapter kit, anyone could play their favorite PlayStation titles while on the move.

While PSOne works great for younger kids, teens (and your friends) might be less than thrilled with mid-’90s gaming tech. Thankfully, if you already have in-car video, there’s a simple solution for playing those Xbox or PS2 titles. With a DC/AC power inverter (about $50), you can power any AC device off your car’s electrical system. An added bonus: It’s also handy for recharging your laptop, cell phone and other digital devices.

If that’s too many cables for you, consider Nokia’s N-Gage ($299), which not only allows head-to-head play wirelessly, but doubles as a cell phone and an MP3 player.

Talk to Me

I rarely go far from home without my laptop, a 12-inch Apple iBook ($1,099 to $1,499). Thanks to wireless networks at places like McDonald’s and Starbucks, you can stop for a latte or some fries and confirm hotel reservations, get directions, check traffic or even get a weather forecast. If you’re shooting your road-trip photos, a laptop is a good companion, allowing you to store and process them quickly, and even send them off to jealous friends and relatives.

Another option is Sony’s TR2A ($2,199), a teeny, tiny laptop that weighs just over three pounds, yet still has enough horsepower for normal computing tasks, including built-in wireless networking. Of course, a Palm ($99 to $600) or PocketPC ($199 to $700) with a wireless Wi-Fi card can handle some of these tasks in a lot less space if you really want to travel light, and can be found at either computer superstores or business superstores.

Good Eats

In my somewhat less reputable youth, my friends and I used to stock the engine compartments of our cars with food and actually cook it while driving. Of course, that had a few drawbacks: Once cooked, the food tasted kind of smoky, and, let’s be honest, is there any good way to get cheese off a valve cover?

Now, it’s possible to keep your food warm in the car and get at it while driving. A large number of companies now make electric coolers that both warm and cool foods, using power from your car. Vector’s Travel Cooler and Warmer ($29.99) will either warm your food to 120 degrees F or cool it to 42 F, although not at the same time.

It’s the end of the road! While road trips will probably never be short, be thankful that there’s a lot of technology to keep you company. Now, if we could only get states to stop renaming all their highways "under construction" every summer.

Cool Travel Sites

Before you pack up, log onto these sites and plan for the perfect trip!

Road Trip USA
(www.roadtripusa.com)
If you want to find attractions along your route, this site offers loads of information and even a few unusual details. Maybe more impressive, it helps sort the wheat from the chaff and points out which attractions are anything but interesting in reality. One downside: not every area is covered.

Roadside AmericA
(www.roadsideamerica.com)
This is the king of all geek attraction sites. If you need to know where the Giant Duck is and why it exists, this is the site for you.

Travelweb.com
(www.travelweb.com)
Although lesser known, this is a good way to find inexpensive hotel rooms everywhere from obscure backwaters to big cities. The interface makes it easy to compare rates, discounts, and amenities, and even offers photos. One downside: not all hotels take reservations online.

MapQuest
(www.mapquest.com)
It’s the easiest way to get directions online, and you can even download info to your Palm or PocketPC. Generally speaking, the maps are accurate. One downside: not all of the routes are the shortest, and you may find yourself forced to drive through a parking lot—no joke—to get to your destination.

MomsMinivan.com
(www.momsminivan.com)
If you want to survive a road trip with the kids, this site offers tons of activities from the mundane to the offbeat, from fun things to do with aluminum foil to how to avoid carsickness (which may definitely come in handy). Even better, the games and activities are targeted for different age groups, so you can focus on what’s best for your crew.