8 Beautiful Road Trips to Take in the USA this Year

If you’ve yet to take a family road trip this year, you need to make time for one. You can experience some of the most unforgettable adventures and collect cherished memories on road trips with your family. You get to see your kids enjoy themselves and learn, spend quality time with your partner, and experience new people and things.

There are so many beautiful road trips to embark on in the U.S. We’ll get to eight of them a little later in this article. But first, let’s go over best practices for ensuring a smooth road trip.

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Table Of Contents

Tips for Ensuring a Smooth Road Trip
Most Beautiful Road Trips in the US – Routes and Attractions

Tips for Ensuring a Smooth Road Trip

Road-tripping can get chaotic and disorganized quickly without any planning, especially if you’re traveling with kids. A smooth road trip is much more likely to happen when you adequately prepare for the adventure. Start with making planning a family task.

Make Planning a Family Task

What better way to guarantee a road trip everyone will love than to make planning it a family task? Each person can choose a few activities or places they want to go. And you have help tackling the many details that come with a road trip.

Create a budget for your trip first. Then, consider how you’ll be traveling. For example, if you want to do an RV trip, you’ll need to choose locations and routes that are RV-friendly and book campsites well in advance.

Pin down how long your trip will be and where you’ll sleep each night. Detail all activities and events you want to attend. Determine a plan for food and drink. And finally, go over the road trip details with your family before finalizing them.

Pack Appropriately

Packing for your road trip is incredibly important, especially if it’s a long road trip. You can’t just turn around and go back home to get the things you forgot. Writing out a packing list and starting to pack early will help ensure you don’t leave anything you need behind.

This isn’t by any means an all-inclusive list, but it will get you started:

A first-aid kit
Garbage bags
Vehicle documents
Food and lots of water
Chargers and portable Wifi device
Blankets and pillows
Books, games, and other forms of entertainment
Any medications and hygiene essentials
Clothes and shoes for every day
Laptop and camera
Portable speaker
Camping essentials if you’re camping.

Be sure to add anything else your family will need during your road trip to this list.

Ready Your Vehicle

You need your mode of transportation in tip-top shape for your road trip. The last thing you want is to get stranded in the middle of your road trip with your kids. So, be sure to get your vehicle serviced before your trip.

Also, think about fuel costs. Gas prices change from state to state, city to city, and can get pretty high. Brainstorm ways you’ll beat high gas prices, such as ensuring your tire pressure is correct and enabling your automatic start/stop engine feature. Saving money on fuel allows you to designate more funds for activities and attractions along the way.

Keep Your Schedule Open for Spontaneity

Planned events and stops are a huge part of what makes road trips so fun. But what’s also memorable are the things you didn’t plan.

For example, you see a sign for a trailhead and stop to go on a hike. Maybe you try a restaurant you found out about through a random conversation. Or you could meet a family and get invited over for a party.

Don’t plan every minute of every day on your road trip. Leave room for spontaneity.

Need Help Planning a Family Road Trip? Start with these family vacation planning resources:

Most Beautiful Road Trips in the US – Routes and Attractions

Now, for the fun part. Exploring the best road trips in the country. There are so many wonderful road trip routes and attractions in the U.S. But these eight are at the top of the list.

Pacific Coast Highway

Looking for a road trip that gives you a taste of the Pacific Northwest? A journey on the Pacific Coast Highway offers exactly that. You can take this route from California to Washington if you wanted to.

While in California, Highway 1 takes you through beach towns and major cities like San Diego, Cannery Row/Monterey, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Stop at the famous San Diego Zoo, have great food in L.A., and get some pictures on the San Francisco Bridge.

Head to Oregon and visit Escola State Park, and then make your way to La Push, Washington for some camping. Road-tripping through the PNW is an experience you’ll hold onto for a lifetime.

Olympic Peninsula Loop

If you’re road-tripping through Washington State, you can’t go wrong with the Olympic Peninsula Loop. This almost 450-mile trip starts in Seattle, ends up in the Olympic Peninsula, and circles back around to Seattle.

Visit Pike Place Market before heading out. Then, catch the ferry to Bainbridge Island or drive through Tacoma to get to Port Townsend. Let the kids explore Port Townsend Marine Science Center while you’re there. Hop back on the road to Sequim and see 250 species of birds at Sequim’s Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge.

You’ll also have the chance to experience Neah Bay, pacific coast beaches at Olympic National Park, and the Quinault Rain Forest on this trip. Ultimately, the Olympic Peninsula Loop is an easy road trip with more than enough for the whole family to do.

Blue Ridge Parkway

If the Appalachian Mountains have been on your bucket list, a road trip on Blue Ridge Parkway is the way to experience them. It’s a 469-mile roadway that goes through the southern Appalachian Mountains in Virginia and North Carolina.

You’ll get to see a lot of wilderness and wildlife on the journey. Go see the highest peak in the eastern U.S. at Mount Mitchell. The Blue Ridge Parkway is also home to New River, the oldest river in North America, and Linville Gorge, the deepest gorge east of the Grand Canyon.

If your family is particularly fond of the outdoors and wildlife, Blue Ridge Parkway is an excellent choice for a road trip filled with adventure opportunities.

Florida Highway 1

Florida attracts millions of tourists a year for good reason. It’s jam-packed with fun things to do for families and people of all kinds. It also has Florida Highway 1, a 2,390-mile stretch of road along the Atlantic shoreline.

Travel through Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale to see mansions, yachts, and all else that the lavish lifestyle in Florida entails. Have a family beach day at Daytona Beach or Canaveral National Seashore. Experience NASCAR at the Daytona Speedway. Or get a bit of Cuban culture in at Little Havana in Miami.

Beautiful weather and beach views are just the start of what the Florida Highway 1 road trip can bring.

Seward Highway

Alaska is one of the best family travel destinations. The snow-covered mountains, range of wildlife, and iconic national parks are just the beginning of the list of reasons why. You can add the Seward Highway to this list as well.

You can take Seward Highway 127 miles from Anchorage to Seward. You’ll see the state’s most breathtaking views as you travel between mountains and shorelines along Turnagain Arm. You can get some skiing in with the family at Alyeska Resort or stay at the Kenai Riverside Lodge for all-inclusive river fishing.

Visit the trail at Johnson’s Pass and Kenai Lake before you conclude this road trip. Check out these local tour options to explore by land or by sea. I did a Resurrection Bay Cruise and it was magnificient.

If you’ve always thought of Alaska as just a cold state with not much to do, take this road trip to change your mind. If you are in the area, also plan a day in Palmer, Alaska for gold mining and a visit to a Musk Ox Farm.

Historic Columbia River Highway

Oregon is home to the Historic Columbia River Highway. Although it’s only 23 miles long, it’s one of the most breathtaking scenic routes you’ll ever take. Historic Columbia River Highway was built in 1917 and is marked as the oldest scenic route in the country.

You start your journey in Troutdale with some of the most beautiful views. The Vista House is a must-stop, as it sits over 700 feet above the Columbia River and is probably the most gorgeous scenic point on the route. The Multnomah, Wahkeenah, and LaTourell Falls, long-standing bridges, and underground tunnels make the drive worth it as well.

Historic Columbia River Highway is a National Historic Landmark that won’t disappoint.

Lake Champlain Byway

The 80-mile road trip on Lake Champlain Byway starts at the Canadian border and ends in Middlebury, VT. Because it’s so short, this trip can be done in a day. Or, you can extend it over a few days to explore some of the must-stops during your journey.

Give your family a little history lesson at the Champlain Historical Society in Rouses Point, NY. Stop at the Goodsell Ridge Fossil Preserve in Grand Isle County and let the kids marvel at fossils that are millions of years old. Drive through Burlington and experience the largest city in Vermont. You could also drive to Barre from Middlebury to Hope Cemetery, a top tourist attraction.

The Lake Champlain Byway packs a lot of interesting things to do in its short length.

Red Rock Country

Red Rock Country is a 145-mile route along Interstate 17 in Arizona. It’s a solid medium-length trip that isn’t void of beautiful scenery and cool stops along the way.

As you travel through the desert terrains, you can take detours to Red Rock Scenic Byway and Interstate 89A to Flagstaff or Phoenix. You could take the kids to the Phoenix Children’s Museum or the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.

Then, get back on the road, take in the skyscraper-like rock formations, and head to the Rock State Museum and the Montezuma Castle. If you’re in or headed to Arizona looking for a short, but meaningful road trip, Red Rock Country is it.

Will in the area, consider adding on a trip to the Grand Canyon. It’s one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World and is truly awe-inspiring. Hiking down into it to explore its beauty can be an unforgettable experience! Check out local tour companies for guided tours. Either way, spend some time marveling at the incredible landscape of this stunning canyon. You won’t regret

Conclusion

Family road trips provide some of the best experiences you’ll have in your lifetime. Taking as many as you can is encouraged. Whether it’s one of the eight road trips above or others you’ve come across on your own, be sure to use the tips above to ensure a smooth, fun experience every time.

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