(MONEY Magazine) – When it comes to helping drivers reach their vacation destinations, TripTiks--those individually tailored, compact but gloriously detailed maps from AAA--have long been the gold standard. As a free benefit of membership (which costs $30 to $72 a year, depending on where you live), road-trippers need only say where they want to go and AAA pumps out a customized series of maps, complete with a highlighted route recommendation, estimated driving times, and food- and auto-service locations.

The proliferation of mapping Websites and software, however, calls for a re-evaluation of this standard. And after test driving a handful of the most popular ones, we think the high-tech challengers are closing in. All of those we tested, in fact, even the free Websites, closely mimic the basics behind AAA's service: You feed in a starting point and a destination, and your computer generates step-by-step directions and a series of detailed maps that show the recommended route.

So how do you choose? Not by path-finding ability, since the sites and software all tend to select more or less the same routes. After that, however, their usefulness and value vary widely, with the Websites producing maps and directions with differing degrees of clarity, and the software packages (which cost $12.99 to $50) adding an array of bells and whistles, some more worthwhile than others.

Before you use your computer to map out your next road trip, keep in mind one limitation the sites and software share: Although the maps can be printed in black and white, their features are easier to read in color. So you need a color printer to take full advantage of the maps while on the road. That said, here are our favorites in each category.

Best Mapping Website

www.delorme.com Because the free mapping sites all perform the same basic tasks, what makes this one stand out is the clarity and detail of its maps and directions. At DeLorme, the directions are presented in an easy-to-read table format that makes some of the competition's versions look sloppy. Trips are broken down into legs, with the travel time and mileage listed for each segment. The directions also tell you what town you'll be driving past (and thus the names on the signs you'll be seeing) as you approach a turn-off. And stretches longer than 30 miles are highlighted, so you know when you can relax and take in a little scenery. The maps, meanwhile, are both clean and nicely detailed, with large, easy-to-read highway numbers and well-marked recreation areas. Plus, they're nicely formatted for printing on 8 1/2-inch-by-11-inch paper.

Unlike two other worthy Websites, MapQuest.com and MapBlast.com, the DeLorme site can also route you across borders throughout North America, which the growing number of Americans driving to Canada will appreciate.

Best Mapping Software

Microsoft Expedia Streets & Trips 2000 Why fork over up to $50 for something you can get free on the Web? Because mapping programs offer features that the Websites don't have. With the best software, you can download up-to-date information about highway construction, traffic delays and alternate routes, map out not just highways and major roads but also small city streets, and link the mapping software with other technologies, such as hand-held digital organizers or satellite navigation systems. Some even go beyond route planning to offer hotel, restaurant and sightseeing recommendations. (There are inexpensive mapping programs that you can buy for $20 or less, but most offer little more than the free Websites--so we say skip them.)

To us, Microsoft Expedia Streets & Trips 2000 ($44.95) is the program that, by focusing only on the most important tasks--prime among them creating highly detailed maps--ends up doing them best. Until recently, Microsoft sold highway trip-planning software separately from its program for mapping city streets. But this latest incarnation, just released in March, combines the two products in one package. The result is a program that's familiar with an impressive 6 million miles of roads and has the ability to generate detailed maps of each turn, exit and junction along your route.

Like most of the other programs in this price range, Microsoft's can download current road conditions and other updated travel information from the Net. It also contains descriptions of some 300,000 points of interest and 25,000 hotels, and incorporates 10,000 Zagat restaurant reviews as well as Yellow Pages-style business listings.

Microsoft Expedia Streets & Trips 2000 does have a few shortcomings, including the large amount of computer memory it requires--about 32 megabytes of RAM and 120 megabytes of hard-drive space. Another is that it's not compatible with a satellite navigation system. If that's the road you want to go down (see the box at right), try DeLorme's AAA Map'n'Go 4.0 ($34.95), which, if used on a laptop, can be linked to a global positioning receiver that tracks your location and voices aloud turn-by-turn directions as you drive along--a far cry, to be sure, from the good old TripTik.