ENSURING A BON VOYAGE.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

Already, three pencil points have given their all for those few pesky souls on your holiday gift list. It's not that these people have everything, they're just particularly hard to buy for.

But wait. They take frequent journeys, whether to locales exotic or familiar, for business or pleasure.

Here's the solution: travel-related gifts. There is an abundance on the market this year, with a few new items to pique curiosity. They can be found at any number of travel stores, from one of the Rand McNally Map & Travel outlets in Southern California to such bold independents as California Map & Travel Center in Santa Monica and Distant Lands Travel Bookstore & Outfitters in Old Pasadena.

Don't forget the catalogs, either - Magellan's and TravelSmith are two of the best. Or the electronic indulgences at the Sharper Image. Or the expedition provisions at Sport Chalet.

On this, the official kickoff weekend of the Christmas buying season, here is a rundown on several gift ideas. The target price range was $35 to $75, but a few items stray - or soar - over that ceiling, while several others nestle into the $25-and-under category.

Make a list. No need to check it more than once.

Gizmos and gadgetry

Oh, to own stock in AA batteries or lithium cells.

The market is glutted yet again with products for people who simply can't get along without the latest in electronic wizardry. Various hand-held devices will translate Arabic into English, convert rupees to dollars, guide your wilderness hike using Global Positioning System satellites and lull you to sleep with the digitized sound of a babbling brook.

Lingo's European Translator ($69.95), smaller than an eyeglass case, features a tiny keyboard, a flip-up screen and gobs of memory. Stored inside are 56,000 words and 17,000 phrases in 14 languages.

As with published phrase books, everything is categorized by situations. Unlike most published phrase books, however, a phonetic version of a given phrase is not provided, so you're on your own for pronunciation. Punch up ``Please refund me'' in Hungarian, for example, and the screen will spit out: ``Kerem fizesse az arat vissza.'' Good luck. At the very least, you could hold the device up to a store clerk and point to the readout.

For foreign-currency conversions, Travel Essentials makes a credit-card-sized device ($14.95) that can remove the headache from the mental math. Just punch in the conversion rate when you cross the border. ``They're very easy to use,'' said Suzanne Snyder, manager of the Rand McNally store in the Century City Shopping Center. ``If you're a shopper going to Italy, you want to know exactly what 10,000 lira is, so you don't have to be surprised when you get your credit-card bill: `Oh, no! I thought it was $50; it was $500!' ''

Have difficulty sleeping in hotels in noisy urban areas? At the Sharper Image, you'll find the Travel Soother ($59), yet another breast pocket-sized, battery-powered item that will emit comforting bedside sounds in four categories: seaside, summer night (complete with crickets), brook and rain.

If cost is no object, another popular product is the Palm V Connected Organizer ($399), which, if combined with a modem ($169), enables a traveler to exchange e-mails from anywhere on the globe.

For people who like to trek across uncharted expanses (or for those who get turned around going out for a newspaper), there are Global Positioning System receivers on the market for $99 and up, according to Rob Gandel of the California Map & Travel Center. One of the store's gift options for higher-end shoppers is the Garmin GPS III Plus ($428), which has a built-in base map that includes cities, towns, major highways, lakes, rivers and, in the U.S., information on gas, lodging and food options near exits of the interstate highway system. If plugged into a personal computer, other cartographic data can be downloaded into it from a CD-ROM.

For those traveling to countries where the tap water is a bit risky to drink, there are several water purifiers available. At Sport Chalet, the Guardian Plus Purifier ($69.99) is only 9 inches tall and weighs just 14 ounces, but it combines a .2-micron filter to remove bacteria, iodinated resin to knock down viruses, and a carbon filter to kill the taste of the iodine and other odors.

With this system, however, you have to fuss with hoses and a pumping mechanism. A simpler purifier, made by Exstream and featured in Magellan's catalog ($39.85), has the appearance of a sport water bottle but has an elaborate internal filter and promises to be just as vigilant in fighting off the microscopic bad guys.

Magellan's also carries a device that might appeal to those of us who seem to come down with a cold within a day of stepping off a transcontinental flight. Air Supply ($99) - no relation to the helium-voiced singing group - is a black box the size of a cigarette pack and is worn on a strap around the neck. By employing a corona discharge chamber, it pledges to clean up the air between you and that guy having a sneezing fit in 12C.

``In that chamber,'' said Magellan's Jack Kotowski, ``air is bombarded with more than 70 trillion ions per second. It causes electron impact decomposition. By various methods, it destroys bacteria, viruses, even pollen. And you just wear it as a pendant around your neck.

A gadget that doesn't feature liquid-crystal displays, lithium cells or micron filters is no less indispensable for a frequent traveler - and is a comparative bargain. It is the Victorinox Swiss Card ($30) - basically a Swiss army knife broken into its component parts and tucked into a holder the size of a credit card. It's all there: scissors, tweezers, screwdriver, blade, pin, pen, ruler, nail file. Also guaranteed to set off airport metal detectors.

The incidental tourist

For someone who has a trip abroad planned for 2000, consider something from the shelf: a guide book, a coffee-table picture book, a journal for the trip, an atlas, perhaps a travel-themed photo album or memory book.

Rand McNally's five area stores are featuring the widely acclaimed Eyewitness Travel Guides bound in leather ($40). The guides are to four major cities - London, Paris, Rome and New York - that are as well-known for their sights as they are for their pickpockets. One of the advantages of having a leather-bound guide book is that when you carry it tucked under your arm, you're not flashing a neon sign that says: ``Tourist. Not sure where to turn at the next corner. Carrying a lot of that confusing money. Will take a long time to consult the lingo translator keyboard for the appropriate word for, `Police

' ''

Several books have been released to coincide with the holidays - and, of course, with the dawn of 2000. DK Publishing has produced a dazzling ``Millennium World Atlas'' ($125) that includes a CD-ROM and a folding world map. Lonely Planet has just released ``Sacred India'' ($29.95), a photo-essay book.

For the ship-bound set, DK also has a new book out titled ``Voyages: The Romance of Cruising'' ($40), which boasts pictures and information on ``the world's 100 most exciting ports of call.''

Closer to home, nostalgic road warriors might be intrigued by a revision of a popular work on Route 66, ``The Illustrated Guidebook to the Mother Road'' (Roadbook International; $19.95), which is exhaustively detailed (including odometer readings and exit numbers from the interstate), and examines the storied highway that once stretched from Santa Monica to Chicago.

While perusing the shelves, don't forget travel videos (Rick Steves is masterful with Europe; Lonely Planet does good work with adventure trips) and computer software, including Rand McNally's TripMaker and StreetFinder ($49.95 each).

Baggage checks

Most seasoned fliers have come to the conclusion that for any given flight, there are only two kinds of luggage: carry-on and lost. But the airlines are cracking down on the limit of two carry-ons per passenger, which creates a quandary for a business traveler hauling a garment bag, a rolling bag and a briefcase.

Tumi offers a solution: the Business Carryon ($595), a wheeled bag that is two-thirds suitcase, one-third briefcase. The latter compartment includes a heavily padded pocket for a laptop computer and the requisite array of zippered pockets and compartments.

To maximize space in that or any other bag, a number of organizing products are available, including Eagle Creek packing bags ($12 to $32 at Rand McNally) and hanging toiletry kits ($19 and $22 from TravelSmith, $39 and $49 from Magellan's).

Travelers who have been reluctant to trade in their perfectly good suitcases for the new generation of wheeled luggage might appreciate the dTube ($49.95). It's a stylized, collapsible cart with ``the world's worst name,'' said Distant Lands owner Adrian Kalvinskas as he folded it down to the size of a flashlight.

Travel togs

Nothing is more annoying on a trip than having packed insufficiently - whether for an unseasonable cold snap or a sign at the restaurant that reads ``Business Attire Recommended.'' The appropriate gift can spare a traveler distress on both fronts.

Go-anywhere fabrics continue to dominate the pages of holiday travel catalogs. TravelSmith is draped in layers of microfleece - cardigans, pullovers, vests and shirts for men; turtlenecks, V-neck tunics and pants for women. This stuff requires half the space of wool and cotton in your suitcase but still provides a quick-drying layer of insulation against the cold. (Men's garments range from $40 to $70, women's from $42 to $60).

In every catalog, you'll also find the simple black traveling dress, which seems to be universally priced at about $80. Made of low-wrinkle synthetic fibers, it's designed to pack and travel well. ``It's our No. 1 product,'' TravelSmith spokesman Caleb Edell said of a garment that the company none-too-subtly markets as ``The Indispensable Black Travel Dress.'' ``Dress it up with pearls, dress it down with flats,'' Edell added, ``you can scrunch it in your suitcase for a week, and it's still wrinkle-free and ready to go.''

Kids' stuff

A while back, Jay Leno took a microphone and a ``Tonight Show'' camera crew to a college graduation ceremony and asked several grads in robes and mortarboards to name any one of the seven continents. It was appalling how many came up completely blank. (One simpleton could only offer weakly, ``Our own?'')

Do a child a favor - give the gift of geographic curiosity.

Most travel stores carry puzzle maps and other games. The California Map & Travel Center also carries an item that meets the current requirement for all things interactive. It is the Geo Safari talking globe ($49.95 for the portable model). It asks kids geography quiz questions and gives them multiple-choice options for response. Best of all, wrong answers can be looked up on the globe immediately.

It's a constructive way to occupy youngsters on a driving trip or during an airport delay. Other games that fall into the category are Travel Scrabble ($24.95), which features square plastic slots for the letter tiles, and Magnetic Travel Backgammon ($40), both carried by Rand McNally. And, for the tykes, Magellan's has the Children's Pack Rat Kit ($19.85), a treasure trove of crayons, paper, scissors, alphabet stencils and a tic-tac-toe game all packed into a compact nylon pouch.

A world of options

Even if you're buying for someone who has no immediate travel plans, it's hard to go wrong with a globe, whether it's a simple desk model (generally $50 and up) or a floor model ($130 and up). When one is displayed in a prominent place in the home, it's difficult to walk by without stopping to survey some far-flung corner of the world.

Globes are popular gift items at this time of year, several store proprietors said. In fact, owner Sheldon Mars of the California Map & Travel Center routinely converts a denlike sitting area into a ``globe room'' over the holidays.

If none of the foregoing items struck your fancy, travel stores can nonetheless be interesting places to browse for gifts - something unexpected is bound catch your eye.

Distant Lands in Old Pasadena, for example, has travel candles, 16 different travel alarm clocks and books that focus on the literature of a region (``Agatha Christie's England,'' for example). The store also has a seemingly boundless supply of guide books - 18 on Cuba alone. ``People have a fascination with Cuba,'' said Kalvinskas. ``Only 90 miles from the U.S - that forbidden-fruit syndrome.''

Browsing through a travel store, even while searching for a gift for someone else, can have an ancillary benefit:

Even if you don't have plans for an immediate journey, such a shopping excursion can provide ample fodder for dreams of a distant one.

SHOPPING SPREE

Numerous stores in Southern California stock travel-related gift items. Most telephone Yellow Pages list them under ``Travel Accessories.'' The retail outlets and catalog companies mentioned in the accompanying story are listed here:

California Map & Travel Center: 3312 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. [phone]. www.mapper.com.

Distant Lands Travel Bookstore & Outfitters: 56 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. [phone]. www.distantlands.com.

Magellan's: Catalog retailer. [phone]. www.magellans.com.

Rand McNally Map & Travel Stores: Six stores in Southern California; for locations, call [phone]. www.randmcnally.com. The Rand McNally store in the Century City Shopping Center (10250 Santa Monica Blvd.) can be reached at [phone].

The Sharper Image: Eight stores in Southern California; for locations, call [phone]. www.sharperimage.com.

Sport Chalet: Twenty-two stores in Southern California, including an outlet store in Montclair; for locations, call [phone]. www.sportchalet.com.

TravelSmith: Catalog retailer. [phone]. www.travelsmith.com.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box

PHOTO (1-- color) no caption (photo of globe with drawing of Santa in sleigh with reindeer)

Photo by David Sprague/Staff Photographer

Illustration by Bradford Mar/Staff Artist

(2 -- color) Sheldon Mars' globe room is an annual holiday tradition at the California Map & Travel Center in Santa Monica, and the colorful orbs are always popular among gift-givers.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(3) Hand-held navigational devices on the market include Magellan's ColorTrak GPS receiver, which even has a built-in altimeter.

(4) Rand McNally's TripMaker software provides the traveler with optimal routes and information on points of interest along the way.

BOX: Shopping spree (see text)