Are You On Call When You’re On Vacation?

When you’re on vacation, how often do you phone home or work?

Half of all vacationers expect to call relatives and friends from the road at least once a week, according to a national survey of 1,000 people by AT&T. Fifteen percent said they would call three or more times a week.

Among travelers who planned to check in with the office, about half said they would call three or more times a week. Some vacation!

The survey found that travelers under age 55 were more likely to keep in touch with the workplace, while those over 55 were more likely to keep in touch with relatives and friends.

Winning ways: As usual, the National Air and Space Museum was the top Washington-area attraction in 1994, according to figures from the Washington Convention & Visitors Association. Nearly 8.5 million people checked out the airplanes, spacecraft and other aviation exhibits there.

Fax facts: New York’s state tourism office has added fax service to its travel information arsenal. More than 60 operators staff a toll-free number that answers in Tonawanda, N.Y., and will mail or fax material on eight categories of New York vacations: country weekends, water vacations, historic vacations, road trips, family weekends, romantic weekends, adventure trips and New York City weekends. The number is (800) 456-8369.

German rentals: Avis Germany has broken the rental-car barrier that replaced the Berlin wall, allowing renters of cars in Germany to drive into eastern Europe.

Auto Europe, a broker that uses Avis, among other companies, is also offering this option, as well as others for Eastern Europe.

Avis allows its cars to go into any Eastern European country except those with unstable political situations. Auto Europe is renting cars in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland that may be driven into Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Russia, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania and Ukraine.

Neither company allows cars to be dropped off in Eastern Europe, although Avis cars may be returned to any location in Germany or, for an added fee, elsewhere in Western Europe. Auto Europe cars must go back to their original cities.

Avis Worldwide: (800) 331-1084. Auto Europe: (800) 223-5555.

Honoring inventors: Inventure Place, Home of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which opened in Akron, Ohio, this summer, aspires to be more than a science museum and library.

It hopes to serve as an inventor’s workshop and a national resource center for creativity. It will also house the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which, since its formation in 1973, has inducted Americans whose inventions - like the pacemaker and the camera, for instance - have had more than a passing influence on the nation’s quality of life.

The centerpiece of the new 77,000-square-foot facility, designed by the New York architect James Stewart Polshek, is a stainless-steel sail-shaped building housing five tiers of exhibits related to the best-known inventors in the United States and their inventions. Highlights include an exhibit that allows visitors to use computer programs to make animations and a “mechanically controlled laser light show,” in which they use mirrors to create and project laser patterns on a screen.

Inventure Place, South Broadway Street, Akron, Ohio; (216) 762-4463.