There exists already a market of transportation fuels i.e. bioethanol and biodiesel produced from food crops in several countries. From the viewpoint of economics, environment, land use, water use and chemical fertilizer use, however, there is a strong preference for the use of woody biomass and various forest/agricultural residues as the feedstock. Thus, the production of transportation fuels through biomass gasification seems the most promising. The technology of producing liquid fuels such as methanol and FT-diesel is well established based on fossil fuels. For biomass, however, it is fairly new. This paper critically reviews a number of transportation fuels such as methanol, DME, FT-fuels etc. with respect to four criteria: efficiency, economy, environmental impact and end use with emphasis on well-to-wheel efficiency. The production of syngas required is discussed which suggests appropriate gasifier design for a high quality syngas production. It is supposed that ethanol is the best choice to substitute gasoline while FT-diesel is the best choice to substitute diesel.