QUICK HITS.

Budget travel: Hostelling International-American Youth Hostels will conduct a workshop on budget travel in Europe at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Hostelling International Travel Centre, 1434 Second St., Santa Monica. Admission is $5 for HI-AYH members, $10 for nonmembers. Information: [phone].

Lights out: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has pulled the plug on all outdoor laser light shows in Las Vegas within 20 miles of McCarran International Airport, North Las Vegas Air Terminal and the Sky Harbor Airport in Henderson.

The action was taken after the FDA, which regulates laser technology, received complaints from 50 pilots that they had been temporarily blinded by the shows. The new Fremont Street Experience, which uses no lasers in its light show, is not affected by the ban.

Goin' up: For $2, energetic visitors to the Adventure Travel Expo Jan. 20-21 at the Long Beach Convention Center can go rock-climbing up a 26-foot wall. Proceeds go to benefit the Wildlife Waystation, a nonprofit rehabilitation refuge for injured and ill wild and exotic animals in Little Tujunga Canyon in the Angeles National Forest.

Admission to the Travel Expo is $8.50; children under 12 are free. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days. Information: [phone].

Pitch in: Global Volunteers, a nonprofit organization, is offering a chance for people to work at unpaid jobs abroad for one, two or three weeks. Among this year's opportunities: Work in the rain forest of Costa Rica Feb. 10-24, teach English in Indonesia Feb. 23-March 11 or in Mexico March 2-16, help build a school dormitory in Tanzania March 2-20. In the U.S., volunteers are needed to help build homes and repair community buildings in the Mississippi Delta or Rio Grande Valley March 9-17 and March 16-24.

Program fees range from $300 for one week in the U.S. to $1,795 plus air fare. Participants must pay all program and travel costs, but all costs are tax-deductible. Information: [phone].

Goin' batty: "Masters of the Night: The True Story of Bats" opens Feb. 10 at the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands. Visitors enter the exhibit through a Gothic castle portal into an upside-down gallery to see the world like a bat at rest. Included in the exhibit are videos, models of bats and live bats. The museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. The bat exhibit runs through May 19. Museum admission is $5.75 adults, $4.75 seniors and students, and $3.75 children age 2-12. Information: [phone].

Unsafe: The Federal Aviation Administration's continuing assessment of the aviation safety standards of other countries has added five nations to its list of those that do not meet international requirements.

The countries - Ecuador, Israel, Jordan, Peru and Venezuela - got "conditional" ratings in the FAA's study of countries with airlines that fly to the United States. This means that airlines from these countries may continue limited operations into the United States, under more intense FAA surveillance, while efforts continue to improve safety standards.

Really big: Tokyo International Exhibition Center (also dubbed Tokyo Big Sight ) will open April 1 with more than 800,000 square feet of exhibition space, including 10 exhibition halls, outdoor and rooftop exhibition areas, a convention hall with simultaneous interpretation booths for eight languages, and 17 conference rooms.

New airline: U.S. Virgin Islands Prestige Airways, a government-backed airline whose purpose is to deliver visitors to the U.S. Virgin Islands, will offer twice-weekly flights from Washington's Dulles International Airport to Miami, continuing to St. Thomas and St. Croix. The airline's regular service will be on Sundays and Thursdays aboard a Boeing 727-200, which can carry 164 people.

The airline is a joint venture between the U.S.V.I. government and Navcom Aviation of Manassas, Va., a charter company. Fares to either of the islands from Dulles are $398 round-trip, with a Dulle s-Miami round-trip fare of $198. Information: [phone].