World's best road trips

Quoting littlesam1

Also I love driving up through the New England states on the east coast. We did a ten day trip with my in laws about six years ago. We drove through all the small villages and back roads from Maryland to Maine.

We enjoyed New England too (and North Carolina and Virginia) but not as much as the West. I think my problem with the east coast states is that I can do small villages and back roads here in England and all over Europe, but the huge skies and vistas of the West are something else!

I have driven as far west as Texas and Oklahoma but have not done the Western parks. We had planned to do them this year but with Mark's job change we were unable to plan the trip this year. Hopefully we can reschedule next spring.

I have never driven in Europe. I am almost always on a train. I have taken some small road trips with friends in Europe but that is my limit. I have driven through Scotland with Sue Taylor. Our old VT buddy Holger has driven us through parts of Ireland. And we took a brief road with with our Danish buddies through some parts of Germany. We have hosted Gillian on several US road trips. Maybe this could be a new idea for meeting former VT friends. Plan road trips with them.

Quoting littlesam1

Maybe this could be a new idea for meeting former VT friends. Plan road trips with them.

I have a feeling some members will plan a road trip in northern England and/or Scotland for after the Newcastle meet

Quoting ToonSarah

I agree - Italy ranked at the top is insane! I love the country, it's my favourite in Europe, but it's not great for driving. To go any distance you have to use the autoroutes, which are no fun to drive, and scenic rural driving is incredibly slow, and the roads so winding (and other drivers so impatient) that there's no chance for the driver to admire the scenery.

Slow winding roads, that sounds like my heavenPerhaps this list isn't so bad I do love a good mountain road, the more bends the better. In terms of my favourite road trips, there is quite a few in my list since I have done a lot.

In Europe I loved Norway, as long you avoid the tunnels nearly everywhere is scenic, some of the stand out roads was the drive along the Tana river up to Nordkapp it just takes you through so many different types of environments and of course the classic Bjørgavegen in Aurland, just stunning scenery. Iceland is another place where no matter the road it just looks spectacular but my favourite was the Westfjord region. In Spain I loved the Sierra Nevadas and driving around Asturias is very picturesque along with the Duoro River drive in Portugal. I also drove through the Pyrennes which was amazing. The Croatian coast is a classic road trip that is worth doing, Montenegro the coastal and mountain roads (especially the road to Pluzine) even the Lake Skadar road are amazing one of my favourite driving countries ever. In Slovenia you have to do the drive through Triglav National Park, beats out Bled anytime And the road from Mostar to Sarajevo lives up to its hype. If your ever in Serbia you have to do the road from Novi Pazar to Nis, it is a really scenic drive as is the road along the Danube. Slovakia also proved to be another good driving country especially when you get up into the High Tatras, unfortunately it rained the second half of our time up there so we missed a lot of good views. If you love medieval towns then the off highway road from Brno to Cesky Krumlov in Czechia is just a line up of beautiful well preserved medieval towns, I couldn't believe these towns weren't crawling with tourists.

In the Americas I did some of the Blue Ridge Parkway which was beautiful along with the Foothills Parkway that was also beautiful. Maui and Big Island have some spectacular driving routes though the road to Hana is pretty underwhelming. Driving through the Mexican mountains on the Pacific side was slow and winding but totally worth it. In Guatemala, Lanquin to Antigua was a very pretty drive and El Estor to Lanquin is a extremely scenic but unfortunately the road quality is horrendous. If they fix up the road it could honestly be one of the great drives in the world.

Now I didn’t drive this myself due to needing some serious 4WD skills but the road that crosses the Tahiti Nui mountains is a road trip worth paying for the driver.

As for Australia I have done so many road trips it is hard to pick a particular stand out. I did love the Omeo Highway, the Blue Mountains have some great roads (Bells Line is particular favourite) I do love driving up the North NSW coast and recently I drove around the East and South coast of Tasmania which was really pretty and driving through the Dandenongs is something I love doing when in the area. We regularly make our way up to Moree with its big open plains stretching into the horizon is unique scenery in its own right. And while I also didn’t drive this myself I did love the North West Coastal Highway in Western Australia, I would love to go back and do some more exploring there.

So many great drives in the world I could really keep going but I think I have written enough of an essay as it is Anyway it was good reminiscing , now I need to get planning the next road trip.

[ Edit: Edited on 24-Jul-2019, at 15:22 by Teoni ]

Quoting Teoni

Someone tried ranking the world's best road trips :

The Global Road Trip Index

To be honest I think the list is completely off. What do you think?

Places were rated by the cost of 2 weeks car rental and accommodation, the price of fuel, Instagrammability and road safety.

That is not the way to rate a road trip. I am assuming that instagrammability means what scenic views there are, because I can't figure out how to use instagram since I don't have it on my phone, and it won't let me post from my computer.

And yes the roads should be reasonably safe. (Where are they not safe in the world’s more economically developed countries?)

But cost should not be the main factor, particularly because that can change with the season or other factors. Renting a car in Miami and driving down to Key West will be way cheaper in August than it will be in February and the accommodations will be cheaper too.

How would we know whether they picked the cheapest car rental, and the cost of gas depends on the kind of car rented.

We took a trip from Maryland down to Tallahassee Florida and back. 14 days and 13 nights. I kept track of the costs. This is what I wrote:

So many people ask, "How much will it cost me to drive from.." point A to point B. Most of the time they want to spend minimal amounts of money. So for this trip I kept detailed expense records. When we were traveling on our boat, my expense records included things like dockage, food, fuel, repairs, phone bills, and the cost of electricity, water and other utilities for our house when we were gone. That is total living expenses. But this report is just for the travel expenses, so I did not include the phone bills in this report, nor did I include house utilities or the cost of the cat sitter.

This is broken down into the following categories

• Gas/Transportation
• Sleeping Accommodations
• Food
• Other (such as admission prices, tolls and gifts)

Transportation expense when traveling by car depends on how expensive the vehicle is to rent. We had our own car, so the only actual out of pocket expense was for gas. Technically we should include the cost of insurance, licensing and depreciation, but I'm not going to get into that. We have a hybrid car which gets very good gas mileage. Our average gas use was 45 mpg for the trip. It was as much as 50 mpg on the freeway, and less than that in town. The average price per gallon was $2.23. So for a trip of 2088 miles, our total gas cost was $100.00

Hotels: For 8 days on this trip we stayed at Hampton Inns which have free parking, free internet and free breakfast. The price of the room depends a good bit on how expensive the area is. The average cost was $160/night, and we tipped about $3.00/night to the maids. We also stayed for three nights at a Navy Lodge (only available to military families) which has a small kitchen. The cost for this accommodations was $77.00/night. This helped balance out the price of the 2 nights where we stayed at a very expensive hotel in Tallahassee for $612/night. Our average room price for 13 nights was $210.46

Food: Most of our breakfasts were eaten at the Hampton Inn's free breakfast. When we are driving, we mostly eat at a fast food place for lunch. If we are going to be several days in a place, we have lunch at a regular restaurant and then take the leftovers home for supper. Since usually our room has at least a microwave and a small fridge, we will also go to a market to buy food to eat in the room. Also during this trip we attended a wedding, and two of the dinners (rehearsal dinner and reception) were free. Our total cost for food was $512.06 or $36.50/day

Other: We paid admission to one Florida State Park ($6.00), and one museum ($8.00 each). We had one bridge toll $6.00, and two ferry rides $6.00 each. We also spent $101 on gifts.

The total cost for 14 days (and 13 nights) was $3909 or $275.00/day

Quoting Teoni

In Guatemala...El Estor to Lanquin is an extremely scenic but unfortunately the road quality is horrendous. If they fix up the road it could honestly be one of the great drives in the world.

Ah yes, that drive from El Estor, via Cahabon, to Lanquin is quite a stunner, no doubt.

Have you made it to Todos Santos via Huehuetenango? If not, keep that in mind for your next trip to Guatemala. There's a crossroads heading toward Todos Santos at Paquix; the entire area here looks like the Scottish Highlands, complete with loads of heather and plenty of fog! In fact, the entire Cuchumatanes Range (and any road going through them) remains an unknown gem - even though the Instagrammability factor is rather high!:

Quoting road to roam

Quoting Teoni

In Guatemala...El Estor to Lanquin is an extremely scenic but unfortunately the road quality is horrendous. If they fix up the road it could honestly be one of the great drives in the world.

Ah yes, that drive from El Estor, via Cahabon, to Lanquin is quite a stunner, no doubt.

Have you made it to Todos Santos via Huehuetenango? If not, keep that in mind for your next trip to Guatemala. There's a crossroads heading toward Todos Santos at Paquix; the entire area here looks like the Scottish Highlands, complete with loads of heather and plenty of fog! In fact, the entire Cuchumatanes Range (and any road going through them) remains an unknown gem - even though the Instagrammability factor is rather high!:

We made it to Huehuetenango but then turned back into Mexico. It was raining that day so it probably wouldn't have been a great drive but I would like to go back and do some more drives around Guatemala so it is definitely going on future travels list.

Quoting ToonSarah

Quoting BeateR

My best road trip suggestion:

Highway 1 in California
The "8" in Alaska/Yukon

Yes, I want to do Yukon to Alaska some day soon. Have you been? Any tips or general observations?

There are not a great deal of hotels along the way. Sometimes it is a hundred miles between them. Keep your gas tank full, it may be a ways to the next station. You cannot cross a boarder with bear spray, but pick some up on the other side. I tried to feed my daughter to them a couple of times..did not work. Actually she is a runner and before going on runs would drive the path. It was a good thing she did as she would find bears.

Do not count on being able to get bars on your phone along the way. It is pretty dead for use of a cellphone.