


The sun’s out, rain is in the rear view and it’s road-trip season in America.
But where to head? There are several fabulous options — including a biggie in California — if driving is meant to be half the fun.
After soliciting travel experts and its readership, USA Today has put out a ranking for its annual Readers’ Choice Awards of Best Scenic Drives for 2025.
These include at 10th place Montana’s Going-to-the-Sun Road through Glacier National Park, which the paper deems an “architectural marvel” with grizzly bear and bighorn-sheep sightings. And at first place is the Great River Road that follows the Mississippi River for 3,000 miles — a modern way of living like Huckleberry Finn.
Sixth place? That’d be California’s lovely Pacific Coast Highway, stretching along mist-shrouded cliffs and mysterious redwood forests from San Francisco to San Diego.
Here are the other scenic drives that USA Today’s readers loved.
1 Great River Road: Minnesota to the Gulf Coast
2 Natchez Trace Parkway: Mississippi-Alabama-Tennessee
3 Blue Ridge Parkway: Virginia to North Carolina
4 Schoodic National Scenic Byway: Maine
5 U.S. Route 66: Los Angeles to Chicago
6 Pacific Coast Highway: California
7 Minnesota North Shore Scenic Drive: Minnesota
8 Door County Coastal Bywa:, Lake Michigan and northern Wisconsin
9 Midland Trail National Scenic Byway: West Virginia
10 Going-to-the-Sun Road: Montana
— John Metcalfe, Bay Area News Group