The 14 Most Scenic Road Trips in The World

The Icefields Parkway runs 232 kilometres between Lake Louise and Jasper through the Canadian Rockies, tracing the Continental Divide past turquoise lakes, hanging glaciers, and the vast Columbia Icefield.

Peyto Lake's overlook and the Athabasca Glacier, reachable on foot or by ice-explorer vehicle, are signature stops, while roadside pullouts deliver mountain views throughout.

Bears and bighorn sheep often appear near the road at dawn and dusk.

The Great Ocean Road hugs 243 kilometres of Victoria's coastline, curling past golden surf beaches, sheer cliffs, and the wind-carved limestone stacks of the Twelve Apostles.

The route swings from crashing Southern Ocean views to fern-draped rainforest in Otway National Park.

Koalas doze in roadside eucalypts near Kennett River, and small surf towns like Lorne and Apollo Bay make easy overnight stops.

Highway 1 traces roughly 650 miles of California's Pacific edge, from Orange County's beach towns through the cliffs and redwood-backed switchbacks of Big Sur to the rugged Mendocino coast.

Bixby Bridge, McWay Falls, and pullouts over crashing surf make nearly every mile worth slowing for.

The road narrows to a single lane clinging to cliffside in Big Sur, and landslide closures are common enough that checking conditions beforehand is routine.

Route 1 loops 1,332 kilometres around Iceland, stringing together nearly every landscape it's famous for: black sand beaches, glacier lagoons, geothermal fields, and waterfalls beside the road.

The south coast alone delivers Seljalandsfoss, Skogafoss and the icebergs of Jokulsarlon within hours.

Further round, the route crosses lava deserts and fishing villages, then the geothermal north near Lake Myvatn, before looping back to Reykjavik.

The Grossglockner High Alpine Road climbs through 36 hairpin bends to over 2,500 metres, threading past Austria's highest peak and ending at a viewpoint over the Pasterze, the country's largest glacier.

Marmots and ibex are a common sight along the route, and a dozen or so panoramic pull-offs give reason to stop every few kilometres.

The road is only open from May to October, closing once snow makes the high pass impassable.

The Atlantic Road links a scatter of skerries and islets off Norway's west coast on an 8km run of bridges and causeways, built to look like it dives straight into the sea.

The Storseisundet Bridge is the famous shot, but the whole stretch is a slow, low-lying drive between open ocean on both sides, with fishing hamlets and pull-offs for scrambling over the rocks.

Storms send waves over the road, which locals treat as a spectator sport in autumn.

Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way follows roughly 2,500 kilometres of coastline from Donegal's Inishowen Peninsula to Kinsale in County Cork, tracing sea cliffs, white sand beaches, and stone-walled fishing villages.

The Cliffs of Moher and Skellig Michael sit along the route, alongside quieter stretches like the Sky Road near Clifden and Achill Island's beaches.

Weather turns quickly, and headlands are as often shrouded in mist as lit gold at sunset.

The Ha Giang Loop is northern Vietnam's classic multi-day motorbike route, threading through the limestone peaks of the Dong Van Karst Plateau past terraced fields, H'mong and Tay villages, and the Ma Pi Leng Pass above the Nho Que River.

Most riders cover the roughly 350km circuit over 3-4 days, self-driving or riding pillion with a local guide.

It's demanding and occasionally hair-raising, but consistently rated among Southeast Asia's best road trips.

The Garden Route traces roughly 300 kilometres of South Africa's southern coast between Mossel Bay and Storms River, crossing indigenous forest, lagoons, and dramatic sea cliffs.

Knysna's lagoon and oyster shacks, Plettenberg Bay's beaches, and the canopy walkways of Tsitsikamma National Park make for constant stops.

Southern right whales gather off Plettenberg Bay for much of the year on this smooth, well-signed, easy self-drive route.

The Transfagarasan climbs 90 kilometres through the southern Carpathians, switchbacking up granite faces to Balea Lake at over 2,000 metres, beneath Romania's highest peak, Moldoveanu.

Hairpin bends, stone viaducts, and a mile-long tunnel make it a favourite of driving shows and motorcyclists alike.

Vidraru Dam and its reservoir sit at the southern approach, flanked by forest that erupts with autumn colour before the snow closes the road again.

The North Coast 500 loops 830 kilometres around the top of the Scottish Highlands, starting and finishing in Inverness.

Single-track roads wind past white sand beaches at Achmelvich, the sea stacks of Duncansby Head, and ruined castles over sea lochs, with the Applecross Pass climbing to one of Britain's highest road summits.

Midges and shifting weather are part of the deal, and passing places on narrower stretches demand attentive driving.

Officially named the Yungas Road, this narrow gravel track earned its nickname from decades as one of the world's most dangerous roads, with sheer cliff drops of up to 600 meters and no guardrails along much of its length.

Since a paved highway took over most through-traffic, the original road has become a popular mountain-biking route, descending some 3,500 meters from frigid Andean altitude into humid Yungas jungle over 64 kilometers.

The Karakoram Highway climbs from the Indus valley through Gilgit-Baltistan to the Khunjerab Pass on the Chinese border, the highest paved international border crossing in the world.

It skirts the Karakoram, Himalaya, and Hindu Kush ranges, passing turquoise Attabad Lake and the terraced orchards of Hunza Valley beneath 7,000-metre peaks.

Landslides regularly close sections, and building it cost hundreds of lives cutting through unstable terrain.

Route 66 is America's original cross-country highway, and its Arizona stretch preserves the longest unbroken original section still open to traffic.

Neon-lit diners, vintage motor courts, and hand-painted signs line the road through Seligman, Kingman, and Oatman, where wild burros wander the main street.

The 191-bend Oatman Highway climbs through the Black Mountains into the Mojave Desert - a rolling time capsule of mid-century road culture.