Ten drives where the road is the reason to go: mountain passes, cliff roads and coastal loops long enough to build a whole trip around, ranked by what you see from the wheel.
We ranked these ten by the drive itself: how much scenery each hour at the wheel delivers, then the road and the stops it links. Each route is linked through the guide at one end of it, or through its country where we have no guide yet.
The best 232 km of road on this list: glaciers, icefields and turquoise lakes line Highway 93 from Lake Louise to Jasper, with Peyto Lake and the Columbia Icefield on the way. Parks Canada lists one gas station and no cell coverage, so fill up first.
Route 1 circles Iceland for more than 1,300 km, now paved the whole way, past waterfalls, black-sand beaches and the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon. The south coast earns its reputation; the East Fjords are where the traffic thins out.
Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles is a cliff road over the Pacific, and Big Sur is the reason to drive it. Through traffic resumed in January 2026 after a three-year landslide closure, so check Caltrans before you set off.
The Great Ocean Road runs 243 km from Torquay to Allansford, built by soldiers back from the First World War as their memorial. The Twelve Apostles are the climax; stay a night in Apollo Bay or Port Campbell to see them at dawn.
About 50 km of the SS163 from Positano to Vietri sul Mare, cut into cliffs above the sea with Amalfi and Ravello on the way. No road here packs more into a kilometre, and the traffic matches it: drive early in the morning or outside summer.
Ceaușescu’s 151 km road over the Făgăraș Mountains climbs to 2,042 m at Bâlea Lake through a stack of hairpins. Snow keeps the high section shut most of the year: it usually opens in early July and closes by the end of October.
Chile’s Route 7 runs more than 1,000 km from Puerto Montt to Villa O’Higgins through fjords, rainforest and hanging glaciers, with ferries where the road runs out. Long stretches are still gravel, so take it slowly, with a good spare tyre.
A 516-mile loop from Inverness through Applecross, Ullapool and Durness, where the far north of Scotland is at its emptiest. Much of the west is single-track road with passing places; use them to let faster traffic by.
The N2 from Mossel Bay to Storms River, about 200 km, links lagoons, forest and the Tsitsikamma coast, with Knysna and Plettenberg Bay as the stops. Short enough for a day and good enough for a week; Gqeberha is the airport at the eastern end.
Ireland’s 2,500 km signed coastal route runs from Kinsale to Muff in Donegal, through Kerry, the Cliffs of Moher and Connemara. Few drive it whole: pick a county or two and take the small roads out to the headlands.
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