Keep Your Travel Costs Down

Whether you're a "road warrior" whose job involves many hours of driving or a commuter who takes the occasional driving trip for business, it's more important than ever to keep traveling costs down given the state of the economy.

This is an excellent time to cut back on time-wasting costs by planning ahead, searching for deals and maximizing your gas mileage. Here are some suggestions:

Sign up for repeat-usage deals: Many national hotel chains offer frequent-stay programs, which allow a business traveler to build up points that turn into overnight stays for no charge.

Plan pre-route travel: Driving in an unknown city can bring about an unwanted headache without planning ahead. Use a navigation system or the internet-based traffic service Traffic.com to avoid traffic jams, detours, construction delays and time lost to being lost. Traffic.com information can be accessed from your cell phone by calling (866) MY-TRAFC (866-698-7232).

Keep maps updated: Updating your GPS device's maps at www.navteq.com/store helps you to identify the best route to your destination, gets you around detours and can even help you find a gas station, ATM or convenience store.

(ARA)