(MONEY Magazine) – Getting travel advice from the Internet doesn't have to end when you leave home. With a cell phone or personal digital assistant (PDA) as your travel companion, you can tap into the Net for mapping software, destination tips and even up-to-the-minute flight updates. What travel information you can get on the road depends on which gadget you carry. Web-enabled cell phones are best for keeping you up to date, but the amount of Web content you can access is limited. Plus, you'll need to subscribe to an Internet service. PDAs are better equipped to store material such as mini-guidebooks and maps. If you don't have Web access, you'll have to download material to your computer and synchronize your handheld to stay up to date. With that in mind, here's the best of the mobile Web for travelers.

Schedules. The websites of American (www.aa.com), United (www.ual.com), Delta (www.delta.com), Northwest (www .nwa.com) and Continental (www.continental.com) airlines offer Palm-OS versions of flight schedules. Northwest will also send delay alerts and gate changes to any Web-enabled cell phone. The best resource for international fliers is OAG (www.oag.com), a free service that sends flight updates for some 800 airlines.

Reservations. If you make hotel, rental car or airline bookings on Travelocity or Expedia, you can check or modify them via cell phone or Web-enabled PDA. To reach Travelocity, cell-phone users must subscribe to AT&T Digital PocketNet or Nextel Internet service, while anyone with Web access on a Palm-OS PDA can stay in touch via www.palm.net. At Expedia, you can check flight times and hotel availability, as well as get driving directions, with any Web-enabled phone. (If your cellular service doesn't offer Expedia, you can reach the website by entering expedia.com/daily/hdml/default.asp on your phone's browser.) All PDA users with Web access can look up Expedia or Trip.com reservations at AvantGo (www.avantgo.com), where you can also buy tickets through Ticketmaster or make restaurant reservations.

Guides. Because of their storage capacity, PDAs are the best option for digital destination advice. At AvantGo, anyone with a PDA can download free weather forecasts, traffic reports and Fodor's city guides. Frommer's guides are available at www .palm.net. Travelers to Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco or Washington, D.C. can get more selective local dining, shopping and entertainment listings at www.vindigo.com. By October, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Seattle guides should be available. Wireless cell-phone users can access city guide information through their phone service's content partners, such as CitySearch (on Verizon) or Expedia guides (on AT&T Digital PocketNet).

--SHIRLEY BRADY