The most pleasant road. The most beautiful roads in the world - the best routes for traveling by car

No the best way get to know the country rather than drive along its roads in person. Freedom of movement and independence depends only on us, because we built the route ourselves! When traveling, a country opens up with all its pros and cons, and this is also a very valuable experience.

We are used to traveling by car in Russia, because we have our own own car. When do you travel abroad? There's nothing complicated. You just need to rent a car from one of the large rental companies, choosing the option that suits you. We did this in the USA, in Thailand and in many other countries. We also rented a motorbike more than once - in Cambodia. Myanmar, Laos and even.

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To rent a car, you should know in advance how many days you will be traveling for. This means you need to create a travel itinerary. It is precisely these routes along the most beautiful roads in the world that I will tell you about.

I’ll start with the most beautiful roads I have personally tested, which we have already driven along ourselves. And then I’ll tell you about those that we hope to conquer in our next travels. And, of course, I’ll just list the most interesting roads world, which are considered very beautiful according to many travelers.

1. Grand Circle in the southwestern United States

One of the most unforgettable trips in the USA is a trip to the Wild West and through the national parks of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and California. Here you can see the most unimaginable geological wonders: stone bridges and huge monuments standing in the middle of the desert, vast, fabulous, unforgettable hikes among the hoodoos and the lowest and driest place in the States - the Badwater salt marsh in Death Valley.

Utah National Parks + Grand Canyon

• Route 1: from Los Angeles (or from Las Vegas) through national parks and natural attractions of the USA (3500 km / 2 weeks):
  • Monument Valley

• Route 2: from Las Vegas through Utah National Parks - The Mighty 5 (1700 km / 5 days)
  • Zion
  • Bryce Canyon
  • Canyonlands

Helpful advice: if you include some, such as and, in your travel itinerary, then your tour of the USA will be even more grandiose.

Read more:

Zion Park - part of the Grand Circle

2. From Los Angeles to San Francisco, take Highway 1 along Pacific Ocean(Pacific Coast Highway)

The most beautiful road in California along the Pacific coast, Route 1, Pacific Highway, Pacific Coast Highway - all this is the dream of any romantic. Take a breeze along the ocean, passing legendary beaches and small California towns. Would you dare? We do!

• Route: — — — — — — —
• Mileage: 1055 km
• When to go: in spring (to catch wild flowers blooming), summer or early autumn.
• Duration of the trip: 3 days
• Attractions: , Bixby Bridge and another beautiful road - on the Pacific coast in Monterey.

More details about the route:

On the beaches of Malibu on the Pacific Coast Highway

3. Drive a car around the island of Oahu in Hawaii (O’ahu Scenic Drive)

Oahu is the capital island of the state of Hawaii, where most of the tourists fly. And yet, the island is desperately beautiful and there is a lot to see. The main thing is not to relax too long on the main beach of Waikiki, but rather take a car and go explore the island. Fly.

• Route: from Honolulu to anywhere.
• When to go: good time during the high season (December to March), but it is better to go in the off-season: from mid-April to mid-June and from September to mid-December. I went just at the beginning of June and I confirm: there are not very many people, and the weather is excellent!
• Duration of the trip: 4-6 days
• Beautiful roads: Pali Highway (Hwy 61), Kamehameha Highway (Hwy 83), Kalaniana'ole Highway (Hwy 72)
• Attractions:(Diamond Head), Kailua Beach Beach Park), Kualoa Regional Park, Waimea Bay, old Nu'uanu pali cliff road.

Old road to the Nu'uanu pali cliff on the island of Oahu, Hawaii

4. Mae Hong Son Loop in Thailand (Mae Hong Son Loop)

Thailand has long been a mecca beach holiday. But is it possible to see the real Thailand on the beaches? No. For cultural pleasure, you need to go to the north, where authentic life remains. We lived here for a long time and therefore I talk about it with special love.

Driving a rented car around Northern Thailand

• Route: - Pai - Mae Hong Son - Mae Sariang - Chiang Mai.
• Mileage: 600 km
• When to go: December - February, during the cool season.
• Duration of the trip: from 3 to 5 days
• Beautiful roads: mountain road 1095 from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son (762 turns), highways 107 and 108.
• Attractions: numerous hot springs in the city, Tam Lod cave in Soppong, tea village, temples in, WWII museum in, Tung Bua Thong sunflower field, the highest waterfall in Thailand, national park

Read more:

Authentic Northern Thailand. Chiang Mai city

Viewpoint along Road 1095 along Mae Hong Son Loop

5. Canadian Rockies & Lakes

We have already visited the Rocky Mountains of the United States - we went to the national park and were amazed by the pure beauty of nature in , so now we want to see what is there on the other side of the border. I constantly see Canadian photos with lakes and mountains everywhere. And what are there beautiful roads!

So this part of Canada is a must-visit, and I’ve already prepared. I offer you two options for routes that will go not only through the mountains, but also through prairies and picturesque valleys with clear lakes.

Moraine Lake in Canada

Route 1 in the Canadian Rockies in the states of British Columbia and Alberta:

• Journey: Calgary – Banff – Lake Louise – Jasper – Edmonton – Elk Island National Park – Calgary
• Mileage: 1200 km
• When to go: summer or early autumn. In autumn, colorful colors appear, but the number of tourists in the parks, on the contrary, decreases
• Duration of the trip: 1 Week
• Attractions: Banff National Park, Lake Louise, Moraine Lake.

Route 2 across Canada's badlands, prairies and lakes from Calgary to Toronto:

• Journey: Calgary – Drumheller – Dinosaur Provincial Park – Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump – Moose Jaw – Regina – Saskatoon – Winnipeg – Thunder Bay – Algonquin Park – Sault Ste. Marie – Wawa – Toronto
• Mileage: 4500 km
• When to go: also in summer or early autumn
• Duration of the trip: 2 – 3 weeks

If you combine both of these routes, you can generally travel around Canada for 3.5 weeks or even a whole month. By the way, entrance to Canada's national parks is paid and it is more convenient to buy a pass in advance (like) on the Parks Canada website.

6. Australian Outback

Seeing the deserts of Australia has been my long-time dream! As soon as I saw Mount Uluru while flipping through a magazine and reading an article about the wonders of nature, I realized that I wanted to visit Australia primarily for this amazing geological formation, which is located in the very heart of the Southern continent.

Map of beautiful roads in Australia: Alice Springs - Kings Canyon - Uluru

• Route: Alice Springs – King’s Canyon – Uluru – Alice Springs
• Mileage: 1200 km
• When to go: March to May (ideally April) to avoid heat, rain and crowds of tourists.
• Duration of the trip: 5-7 days
• Attractions: Uluru, mountains The Olgas (Kata Tjuta), beautiful sunsets, kangaroo and dingo

Great Ocean Road in Australia

7. Great Ocean Road

Another reason to come to Australia is the Great Ocean Road in Victoria from Torquay ( Torquay) to Allansford ( Allansford) along the edge of the Southern Continent. This scenic road, built in 1932, is considered a national treasure of Australia.

• Mileage: 243 km.
• When to go: Australian summer or autumn (November to March)
• Duration of the trip: 2-3 days
• Attractions: Port Campbell National Park and its highlights - the Twelve Apostles rocks, Shipwreck Coast, Loch Ard Gorge, The Grotto.

8. Dalton Highway in Alaska

A journey beyond the Arctic Circle through wild Alaska, from south to north. We have already traveled to the very north of Russia, to the Murmansk region and saw the Arctic Ocean. Now I want to make the same journey through Alaska, the largest and most uninhabited state in the USA. Besides, I already managed to visit, and it was very interesting, so I want to resume my adventures in Alaska!

Dorona Dalton Highway is the route from Fairbanks to Deadhorse, but it is more convenient to fly into Anchorage and drive from there.

Road from Anchorage to northern Alaska

• Route: Anchorage - Fairbanks - Deadhorse
• Mileage: 1400 one way
• When to go: in summer, and better in August, during the polar nights. By the way, northern lights can also be found starting in August.
• Duration of the trip: 5 days for travel + time for national parks (from 3 to 6 days).
• Attractions: Denali National Park with the most high mountain in the USA, Gates to the Arctic National Park, Arctic Circle sign.

Chuisky Trakt. Altai, Russia

Here are some more beautiful roads where you can go on your own by car:

• Chuysky tract- the most beautiful road in Russia in Altai. My friend rode it on a bicycle and says that she has never seen more beautiful expensive ones;
• Atlantic Road in Norway— road along the islands through the sea;
• Road through the Pampas in Argentina— along road 40 from the very north to the south.

And these are roads that you can’t drive your own cars yet, but you need to book a tour:

• Pamir Highway— from Kyrgyzstan to Tajikistan
• Altiplano of Bolivia- from by itself large salt marsh in the world along volcanoes and picturesque lagoons with flamingos.

Today is the most grand canyon throughout Europe: its length is 25 kilometers and its depth reaches 700 meters! Although the Verdon Gorge is smaller in scale than the Arizona canyon, it clearly surpasses it in beauty. It will take a whole day to go around the gorge, although there are only a hundred kilometers. But they all consist entirely of bends, descents and ascents, man-made tunnels and passages under rocks hanging overhead and hiding the sky.

The most beautiful views the gorge opens from the old Cretan road, or Cretan loop (Route des Cretes, D23), built in ancient times and passing along the northern edge of the canyon. This narrow winding path comes close to the cliff in places. Along its edges there are observation platforms, each of which offers breathtaking views of the Verdon. The Cretan loop is considered one-way: you need to drive along it clockwise, starting from the town of Castellane towards the artificial lake of Sainte-Croix, which was formed after the construction of a dam in 1975.

2) Pamir Highway (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan)

The highest mountain road in the territory former USSR. This almost entirely dirt road climbs the spurs of the Pamir Mountains and passes through the three main mountain passes of the Pamirs: Taldyk (3615 m), Kyzyl-Art (4280 m) and the closest point to the “Roof of the World” - Akbaital Pass (4655 m). Eastern part The highway - from the Kyrgyz city of Osh to the Tajik Khorog - was built in 1931-1934, when the USSR was actively developing the territory of the mountain Pamirs. It passes through green foothills where horses graze and lonely yurts and dung-smeared huts stand, and past the Pamir National Park, dominated by Lenin Peak (7134 m).

3) Atlantic Road (Norway)

The Atlantic Road (No. 64) goes almost along the ocean itself, jumping from island to island with the help of bridges and tunnels. This is a unique technological structure: the route is only 8.5 kilometers long - as many as six bridges! The main one is the Storseisundet Bridge, which is also called the “Bridge to Heaven”. If you approach it from the mainland, it seems as if the road surface breaks off at the highest point and the traveler can only jump straight into the sky. The impression is enhanced if you drive along the Atlantic Road in the fall, when the storm season begins: huge waves They roll onto small islands, smash with a roar on bridge supports, and sometimes cover the entire road, trying to lick the cars driving along it.

However, the Atlantic Road is only part of the route along the fjords. Moving along it further towards Oslo, you will come to one of the most famous serpentines in Europe - the Trollstigen (Trollstigen) climbing the mountainside.

4) Route 40 (Argentina)

Route No. 40 (Ruta 40) crosses almost the entirety of Argentina from north to south and runs along the high Andean ridges. This is one of the longest roads in the world - 5000 kilometers long! At the same time, they pass through several climatic zones. The landscape around is constantly changing: forests, rocks, lakes, fields, meadows, deserts, almost uninhabited pampas, asphalt and gravel, dust and red sand, sun and knocking wind, 27 mountain passes, 18 large rivers finally, 20 national parks, in each of which you can spend several days

Most of the roads and highways are boring and uninteresting, and you'll want to get stuck on them after a few hours of driving. However, there are still unique roads on Earth that do not allow drivers to relax for a minute, which take your breath away and where you want to return again and again. The most interesting things are mainly mountain roads with serpentines or highways going over bridges over the sea. Meet the ten most beautiful roads in the world, which every driver simply must drive.

10. Florida Keys Seven Mile Bridge, USA

This 11.27 kilometer bridge, also known as the Seven Mile Bridge, connects Florida to the Florida Keys. Here you can drive a car between heaven and earth a hundred kilometers per hour over turquoise water along a highway stretched like a string.

9. Dadès Gorges, Morocco

Over the course of several thousand years, the Dades River in Atlas washed out a deep, steep gorge, where one of the most beautiful and most dangerous roads in the world. The highway winds like a narrow snake along stone ledges, has a bunch of hairpins and 360-degree turns, at which you have to slow down to zero.

8. Transfăgărăşan, Romania

Romanian dictator Nicola Ceausescu loved large-scale projects that captured the imagination of ordinary people. One of them is the Transfagarasan Highway, cut through the Carpathians between the regions of Wallachia and Transylvania. The road twists and turns intricately, now rising to the clouds, now descending to the ground, and from the side of the road there are simply bewitching views of the majestic mountains. This highway is considered one of the most beautiful in the world, climbing to 8th place in our ranking, attracting tens of thousands of tourists every year, becoming in some way the hallmark of Romania.

7. Sani Pass, South Africa

From South Africa Lesotho can be reached through the Drakensberg Mountains, driving through the Sani Pass at an altitude of over 2800 meters above sea level. Only high-quality drivers in four-wheel drive vehicles can get up here along narrow serpentines, but extreme sports enthusiasts can go down from Lesotho in almost any technically sound car. The length of the dirt road is 9 kilometers.

6. Stelvio Pass, Italy

The Stelvio Pass, also known as the Stelvio road, is a 2-kilometer stretch of narrow cliff-clutching road in the Italian Alps that rises to a height of almost 2,757 meters. The road was built in 1820 by the Austrian Empire, which connected Lombardy with the rest of Austria, since then practically nothing has changed here, except that it was covered with asphalt and bumpers were installed. Extreme drivers will find 60 sharp turns here, with a turn of almost 360 degrees.

5. Atlantic Road, Norway

To entertain tourists, the Norwegians built a two-lane Atlantic road with a length of 8 kilometers. With the help of 7 bridges, some of which have a very strange shape, soaring into the sky and seeming to break there, several islands were connected together not far from the coast. Here you just need to drive, enjoying the local beauties, breathing in deeply the clean sea air. Several panoramic platforms covered with a glass cover were made especially for tourists.

4. Le col de Turini, France

In French Alps there is a 30 kilometer highway Col de Turini rising to an altitude of 1500 meters. There are practically no straight sections of the road, keeping drivers in constant suspense. But everything is compensated by simply fantastic views of the mountains. Don’t forget Col de Turini has been one of the compulsory program the legendary Monte Carlo Rally.

3. Troll Road (Trollstigen), Norway

The Troll Road, also known as the Troll Staircase, is 106 kilometers long and one of the most popular tourist attractions in Norway. The road simply winds through the rocks in serpentines through the mountains, has a very large height difference and in some places narrows to 3 meters. Daredevils who climbed to the very top high point, expensively rising to a height of 850 meters above sea level, they have the opportunity to see from the side the full scale of the troll ladder and the Stigfossen waterfall. In winter and summer, the authorities close the road to travel, opening it only when the snow melts and it becomes warm (by local standards, of course).

2. Road to Jebel Hafeet, UAE

In the United Arab Emirates they know how to turn the simplest things into attractions that attract tourists from all over the world. To the second highest mountain in the country, Jebel Hafeet, rising up to 1249 meters, a 12-kilometer route going up serpentines was laid. Made at every sharp turn Observation deck. The track looks especially impressive at night with the lights on, a luminous snake going up. View of Abu Dhabi from the top of Jebel Hafeet.

1.GuoliangTunnel, China

The most beautiful and unusual road is made in China. In Henan Province, a 1,500-meter tunnel was cut into the mountains with giant openings for lighting. You need to visit here to feel how epic these couple of kilometers look.

There are more than 160,000 miles of high-quality highways in the United States. If you are planning a trip to America, you can choose any route, I am sure you will like it. But if you want something more, add one of these legendary routes. Or better yet, several at once.

If you ask me now what trip interests me the most, I will say - a road trip around the USA. From east to west, from one ocean to another, and then back. In a powerful American car, of course. I'm interested in cultures different countries, but for some reason the American one is closer and more understandable than the others. I am sure that very soon this long-term dream will become a reality and my personal reports from American roads will appear on this blog.

1. Route 66

Perhaps the most famous highway in the United States, one of the first American highways, also known as “America's Main Street” or “Mother of Roads”. Route 66 opened in November 1926, but gained particular fame and iconic status after World War II.

Route 66 played an important role in the American migration to the West in the 1930s.

Highway 66 originally began in Chicago and ended in Los Angeles, covering a total of 3,940 kilometers. Over its long history, the highway has undergone multiple reconstructions in different sections, and in 1985 it officially ceased to exist. Some sections of the road received the status historical heritage. Now it's a piece American history and an iconic landmark.

2.Pacific Coast Highway

SR 1 runs along much of the Pacific Coast of California. The length of the road is 883 kilometers. Famous for the fact that it runs along one of the most picturesque coastlines in the world.

Pacific Coast Highway is the most popular a tourist route in the state of California. This route is usually never crowded and there are many viewpoints. From January to April you can watch whales from the road.

One of the most famous places A vacation spot on this route is the Big Sur region, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise majestically from the ocean.

3. Extraterrestrial Highway

Nevada State Route 375 is a relatively short and lightly traveled highway that is closely associated with alien myths. It is in the immediate vicinity of this highway that the most secret military base in the world - the famous Area 51. The impressive secrecy of the base, the very existence of which the government admitted with great reluctance, made it the subject of numerous conspiracy theories, especially about unidentified flying objects.

In 1996, authorities even gave this highway a second official name: Extraterrestrial Highway, which means “Extraterrestrial Highway”. After all, marketing is in the blood of Americans.

4. Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail is a historic road built in the 1830s. The road connected the Missouri River valley with valleys in modern Oregon, and was suitable for wagon travel. This is the oldest of the roads connecting the Great Plains with the western United States. The Oregon Trail played a huge role in the development of the Wild West.

These days, of course, the Oregon Trail is inaccessible to road transport and is a historical landmark.

To visit these places, you need to follow one of the modern parallel routes, for example Intersate 80, which in the West of the country roughly follows the historical Oregon Trail, right down to the same towns.

5. Natchez Trace Parkway

The Natchez Trace is a 665 km long historical trail in the southeastern United States, connecting the cities of Natchez and Nashville. Over thousands of years, a chain of trails of migrating animals formed here - deer, bison and the following predators - foxes, coyotes, wolves, and then people (the first Indians). European discoverers began to actively use this trail following the Indians.

The modern paved Natchez Trace Parkway spans three states: Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama, most of it along or in close proximity to the historic route.

6. Blue Ridge Parkway

This beautiful route runs along the Blue Ridge mountain range in the eastern United States, and combines two national parks. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a tourist highway known for its beautiful views. Its total length is 755 kilometers.

Construction of the road took about 52 years; the last section was completed in 1987. The route includes a series of mountain tunnels - one in Virginia and twenty-five in North Carolina. Often, areas near the tunnels are closed for the winter - due to low temperatures and lack of sunlight, ice actively accumulates here. Blue Ridge is especially beautiful in the fall.

7. Going-to-the-Sun Road

The scenic Going-to-the-Sun Road crosses Glacier National Park, located in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Built in 1932.

The road is closed most of the year. Going-to-the-sun is considered America's toughest road to clear snow. Before the season opens, it takes 10 weeks to clear the road. Despite the use of technology, it is not possible to walk more than 150 meters a day. At Logan Pass, the snow cover reaches 24 meters.