The Wisconsin Department of Tourism this week unveiled its revamped Web site that now offers visitors an online travel planner as well as other bells and whistles, such as e-mail updates and postcards that can be sent to family and friends through cyberspace. Travelers can print out a travel planner by choosing which part of the state they want to visit and when. No problem, the Web site shows you a list of museums and other destinations ranging from House on the Rock and the first state Capitol in Belmont to the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum and the Hoard Historical Museum and National Dairy Shrine in Fort Atkinson. You can find that out. You can do that, too.
Tourists can find out phone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses and Web sites for each attraction.
Sometimes it's a matter of clicking from the state tourism site onto a Web site, say for the House of Rock, to go to the attraction's home page. Once you've figured out where and when to go, then click on accommodations to find a place to stay. Not available yet are maps and driving directions, but tourism officials are hoping that feature will be added to the site in a month. The state Department of Tourism has offered a Web site since 1996. The travel planner and other improvements were added after focus groups said they wanted the site to help them plan their vacations.