Driving for the view: top 10 scenic road trips

By Editorial Staff

updated 2:49 p.m. ET July 10, 2006

It's hard to resist the lure of the open road when summer rolls around – and with our editors' favorite scenic drives across the US, you'll know exactly where to point your car this year. We've listed our favorites from west to east – including everything from the obvious Highway 1 in California, to the less-obvious – but brilliantly named – Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana. We've picked routes for their history (US Route 1 in New England and Million Dollar Highway in Colorado); for their natural scenery (Blue Ridge Parkway; Red Rock Scenic Byway; Highway 12); for their romantic appeal (routes through Sonoma and Napa); and their remote wild beauty (Hana and Seward highways). Best of all, most of these routes make for splendid drives all year long, so you can get out and explore their bounty whenever the mood strikes. So rev your engines . . . and hit the road.

Blue Ridge Parkway
Stretching some 469 miles along the Southern Appalachian Mountains and linking two eastern national parks – Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and North Carolina/Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains – the Blue Ridge Parkway has often been referred to as "America’s Favorite Drive." It’s certainly the country’s first rural route – parts of it date back to 1930s (when construction began as a make-work project during the Depression) – and one of its longest, with breathtaking scenery and dozens of recreational opportunities to distract you when you need to stretch your legs.

Hana Highway
It’s no wonder the spirit of aloha 'aina (love of the land) is the bedrock of Hawaiian tradition. A drive on Maui’s beloved Hana Highway (also called "the road to Hana") offers such an awe-inspiring display of natural beauty that you’ll soon revel in the same sentiment. This serpentine 55-mile trek starts off in Paia, famous for its surfer-swept shores, and zigzags east along the coast, all the while embracing 600 hairpin curves, 56 one-lane bridges, and some of the island’s most spectacular sights. Indeed, Keanae Arboretum (an exotic botanical garden), Waikane Falls (a trio of crashing chutes), Ka Ekeku Caverns (an ancient cavern system created from a lava flow thousands of years ago), and Waianapanapa State Park (home to a famous black-sand beach and fresh-water caves) are all in close proximity. Keep your windows down as you go and breathe in the sweet air infused with eucalyptus and ginger.

Highway 1
California’s State Route 1 (aka Highway 1) skirts the Golden State’s glorious Pacific coastline from “So Cal,” near San Luis Obispo, northwest to the forests of Monterey. The magnificent vistas of ocean waves breaking on rocky sea-sculpted shores, windswept beaches dotted by frolicking otters or sea lions, and magnificent forests presiding above it all can rouse even the wariest of drivers behind the wheel. Forays into charming little coastal towns, like Carmel-by-the-Sea and Laguna Beach, as well as into the trilogy of Californian cultural centers at Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, are met by attractions ranging from historic missions to magnificent mansions. There are also endless opportunities for outdoor recreation, particularly around the Big Sur area, where you can hike through redwood forests, comb the beaches for shells and jade, and camp under the stars.

Highway 12
Windswept red-rock canyons, towering sandstone formations, pristine lakes, and pine-studded mountain ranges combine for an altogether over-the-top sensory experience in Southern Utah. The setting for several stunning national parks, Utah Highway 12, also known as Highway 12 Scenic Byway, is one of only 27 nationally designated All-American Roads – the highest honor a road can get for attractive scenery. This remarkable road connects Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef, and travels through the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and over the forested Boulder Mountain in the Dixie National Forest, before winding down near the entrance to Capitol Reef. Unique beauty and seemingly limitless recreational opportunities abound on the stretch of land between the two parks’ boundaries.

© Punchstock Rev your engines – a trip along one of our favorite scenic drives is sure to leave you enthralled.

Going-to-the-Sun Road
This spectacular 52-mile drive is the best way to see the dramatic remnants and rugged path left by gargantuan glaciers in Montana’s striking Glacier National Park. Only open from early-June to mid-October (or, until first snowfall), the Going-to-the-Sun Road, aptly named for its ever-escalating sky-high stretch with switchbacks up and over the magnificent Continental Divide, traverses Glacier National Park from West Glacier to St. Mary and covers untapped wilderness, rugged mountains, glistening lakes, deep river gorges, glacial canyons, and the long Garden Wall. The road offers multiple lookout points, among them the 6680-foot-high Logan Pass, which ranks as one of the Divide's most impressive vantage points, and Jackson Glacier Overlook, where remnants of the mammoth ice formations that carved the park's harsh terrain and contoured its valleys can still be seen.

Million Dollar Highway
Despite varying explanations as to the origin of its name (one claims it cost $1 million a mile to build in 1924; another says it contains $1 million in gold ore), there’s no disputing the fact that the 75-mile stretch of scenic highway known as Million Dollar Highway is a breathtaking journey through the majestic mountain passes of western Colorado. Crossing part of the San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway, and following route US 550 between the old mining towns of Silverton and Ouray, the route’s twists and turns wend high above the Red Mountain Pass – an 11,008-foot-high collapsed volcano whose lava flow was found to contain gold in 1860 – and past the deep Uncompahgre Gorge into which flow several waterfalls. As you continue to slice through the mountainside, winding along hairpin switchbacks and following old stagecoach paths, this route bears witness to the area’s now-defunct mining operations; you can even stop in Silverton to admire the town’s historic Victorian style buildings, some of which date back to 1874.

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