This has always been my approach to this little nuisance. Note the use of VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute(relativeUrl) allows the method to be declared as an extension in a static class.
/// <summary>
/// Converts the provided app-relative path into an absolute Url containing the
/// full host name
/// </summary>
/// <param name="relativeUrl">App-Relative path</param>
/// <returns>Provided relativeUrl parameter as fully qualified Url</returns>
/// <example>~/path/to/foo to http://www.web.com/path/to/foo</example>
public static string ToAbsoluteUrl(this string relativeUrl) {
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(relativeUrl))
return relativeUrl;
if (HttpContext.Current == null)
return relativeUrl;
if (relativeUrl.StartsWith("https://stackoverflow.com/"))
relativeUrl = relativeUrl.Insert(0, "~");
if (!relativeUrl.StartsWith("~/"))
relativeUrl = relativeUrl.Insert(0, "~/");
var url = HttpContext.Current.Request.Url;
var port = url.Port != 80 ? (":" + url.Port) : String.Empty;
return String.Format("{0}://{1}{2}{3}",
url.Scheme, url.Host, port, VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute(relativeUrl));
}