Some road trips are what you do after you arrive somewhere.
Others are the reason you buy the plane ticket.
That distinction matters.
Nobody should cross an ocean simply because a road has a few attractive viewpoints. A drive worth building an international vacation around needs more than scenery. It should change character as you travel. There should be places worth stopping overnight, food worth leaving the highway for and moments when the journey itself becomes more memorable than whatever was marked as the destination.
The best road trips in the world do exactly that.
Ireland gives you stormy cliffs, pubs and fishing villages over thousands of coastal kilometers. Iceland turns one loop into a sequence of glaciers, waterfalls, black beaches and geothermal landscapes. Australia’s Great Ocean Road can transform a Melbourne trip into something much larger. Canada puts glaciers beside the highway.
Then there are roads such as America’s Route 66 where the landscape is only part of the story. In 2026, the Mother Road is celebrating its centennial, making this an unusually good year to drive at least part of it. Condé Nast Traveler
These are the drives I would actually consider flying for.
| Road Trip | Country | Ideal Time | Recommended Trip | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ring Road | Iceland | May–Sep | 8–10 days | Maximum scenery |
| Wild Atlantic Way | Ireland | Apr–Jun, Sep | 10–14 days | Coast + culture |
| Great Ocean Road | Australia | Mar–May, Sep–Nov | 3–4 days | Coastal drama |
| Icefields Parkway | Canada | Jun–Sep | 2–4 days | Mountains + glaciers |
| Route 66 | USA | Apr–May, Sep–Oct | 2–3 weeks | Americana |
| Garden Route | South Africa | Feb–May, Sep–Nov | 5–8 days | Variety |
| Carretera Austral | Chile | Dec–Mar | 10–14 days | Remote adventure |
| Amalfi Coast | Italy | Apr–May, Sep–Oct | 3–5 days | Food + villages |
| Queenstown to Milford Sound | New Zealand | Nov–Apr | 3–5 days | Alpine landscapes |
| Atlantic Ocean Road + western Norway | Norway | May–Sep | 5–8 days | Fjords + engineering |
If somebody asked me to recommend one international road trip without knowing much about their tastes, Iceland would be difficult to beat.
The Ring Road circles much of the country on Route 1 for about 1,322 kilometers (820 miles). Visit Iceland recommends allowing at least seven days, although I would rather have eight to ten. Visit Iceland
The appeal is not one spectacular section.
It is how quickly Iceland changes.
One morning can begin beside a waterfall and end near a glacier lagoon. You pass black-sand beaches, moss-covered lava fields, fishing towns, volcanic landscapes, mountains and geothermal areas without spending days driving through forgettable territory.
Travel + Leisure’s current Iceland guidance similarly highlights the Ring Road as the obvious self-drive framework for connecting places such as Reykjavík, Vík, Höfn and Akureyri. Travel + Leisure
Summer is easiest for first-time visitors. Days are extremely long, most mainstream routes are accessible and you have more freedom to stop without fighting winter darkness.
Winter is beautiful but not simply “summer with snow.” Weather can temporarily close sections of Route 1, so flexibility becomes essential.
Why fly for it: Few road trips deliver this much landscape variety over one manageable loop.
My advice: Don’t attempt to collect every famous stop. Iceland gets better when you occasionally ignore the itinerary.
Ireland solves a problem that affects many spectacular road trips.
Sometimes the driving is incredible, but evenings are forgettable.
The Wild Atlantic Way is different.
You can spend the day between cliffs, beaches and windswept peninsulas, then end it in a small town with seafood, live music and a pub that feels as important to the trip as the coastline.
The entire route runs for roughly 1,600 miles along Ireland’s western coast, connecting County Donegal in the north with County Cork in the south. A September 2026 Travel + Leisure guide recommends treating it as a multi-day or even multi-week journey rather than trying to conquer the whole thing quickly. Travel + Leisure
That is exactly how I would approach it.
You don’t need all of it.
For a first trip, concentrate on a section combining Galway, Connemara, the Burren, Dingle and County Kerry, or build a northern itinerary around Donegal and Sligo.
The road is often narrow. Distances that look modest on a map can consume half a day once you add photo stops, villages and sheep behaving as though traffic regulations are optional.
Why fly for it: The landscape is exceptional, but the villages, music and people prevent the trip from becoming scenery fatigue.
Best approach: Two weeks if you want the full route; five to seven days if you choose one region well.
Flying internationally just to drive one road in Victoria would be ambitious.
Flying to Melbourne and making the Great Ocean Road the second half of the trip?
Excellent idea.
The roughly 150-mile coastal highway runs west of Melbourne through surf towns, forests and one of Australia’s most dramatic stretches of coastline. The Twelve Apostles limestone formations remain its famous finale, but the drive works because there is enough happening before you reach them. Condé Nast Traveler’s 2026 coverage highlights the combination of rugged shoreline, Great Otway National Park and distinctly Australian wildlife along the route. Condé Nast Traveler
The common mistake is treating it as a race to the Twelve Apostles.
Don’t.
Stay overnight.
Walk through rainforest.
Stop in Apollo Bay.
Take minor detours.
Watch the light change along the cliffs.
Three days feels much better than one.
Why fly for it: It combines naturally with Melbourne, which makes the airfare work harder.
Best for: Couples, first-time Australia visitors and travelers who like coastal scenery but don’t want a two-week driving expedition.
Not every great road trip needs 10 days.
Canada’s Icefields Parkway stretches about 232 kilometers between Lake Louise and Jasper through the Canadian Rockies. Travel Alberta describes a landscape of glaciers, icefields, mountain valleys and roadside viewpoints along Highway 93. Travel Alberta
On paper, you could drive it relatively quickly.
That would miss the point.
The road deserves a full day at minimum and preferably several nights as part of a Banff–Lake Louise–Jasper trip.
There are lakes that appear almost suspiciously turquoise, glacier viewpoints, trails and mountain pullouts where the normal instinct is to stop the car again even though you stopped ten minutes ago.
Winter transforms the parkway into something more serious. Travel + Leisure highlighted it in 2026 for its frozen waterfalls and glacier scenery, but winter driving introduces conditions that demand considerably more preparation. Travel + Leisure
Why fly for it: Few places allow you to experience scenery of this scale with so little logistical effort.
My pick: Go in early autumn if you want fewer peak-summer crowds but still reasonable driving conditions.
Route 66 is not the prettiest road on this list.
It may be the most storied.
The historic route links Chicago with Santa Monica across roughly 3,800 kilometers, passing through eight states and a changing America of small towns, desert, neon signs, motels, diners and roadside oddities. Visit The USA is marking 100 years of Route 66 in 2026, making this a particularly interesting year to drive it. Visit The USA
The important detail is that the original road no longer exists as one uninterrupted modern highway.
You piece together historic sections.
That inconvenience is part of the experience.
A navigation app that simply chooses the fastest route will repeatedly try to remove the very thing you came for.
You also don’t need to drive all the way from Chicago to California.
Arizona and New Mexico alone can produce a fantastic road trip.
Why fly for it: This is travel through American cultural mythology as much as geography.
Best for: Photography, Americana, diners, motels, vintage architecture and travelers who care about stories behind places.
The Garden Route has a serious advantage over road trips built around one type of scenery.
It keeps changing.
Coastline becomes forest. Towns lead to beaches. Wildlife experiences, hiking, lagoons and food can all fit into the same trip.
Travel + Leisure reported in 2026 that the Garden Route ranked particularly well in research evaluating scenic road trips for favorable driving weather. Travel + Leisure
But weather is not why I would choose it.
I would choose it because you can build a genuinely varied vacation around the road.
Start around Cape Town, continue toward the Cape Winelands if time allows, then move east through places such as Mossel Bay, Wilderness, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay and Tsitsikamma.
One day can be a beach day.
The next can involve forest walks.
Another might be built around wildlife.
Why fly for it: You get a road trip without sacrificing the variety people normally expect from a full international holiday.
Ideal length: About a week, longer if Cape Town is included.
Not every road trip should be comfortable.
Chile’s Carretera Austral runs through northern Patagonia where mountains, forests, rivers and glacial landscapes make civilization feel increasingly distant.
Travel + Leisure’s 2026 roundup of highly photographed global road trips placed Chile’s Carretera Austral among the world’s standout routes. Travel + Leisure
This is not the trip I would recommend for somebody who wants to collect luxury hotels every evening.
Distances matter.
Fuel planning matters.
Road conditions matter.
Ferries can matter.
That is exactly why it feels like an expedition rather than a scenic commute.
Places such as Queulat National Park, Marble Caves and the landscapes around General Carrera Lake justify the effort.
Why fly for it: Patagonia is already one of the world’s great landscape destinations; driving gives you a scale of experience that flying between gateways never does.
Best for: Experienced road-trippers, hikers and photographers.
Italy’s Amalfi Coast proves that length is a poor measure of road-trip quality.
The famous SS163 is relatively short.
It also contains cliffside turns, villages stacked vertically above the sea and enough visual distraction to make the driver wish they were the passenger.
Condé Nast Traveler included the Amalfi drive among Europe’s standout coastal routes in its 2026 road-trip coverage. Condé Nast Traveler
The appeal is obvious:
Positano. Ravello. Amalfi. Mediterranean views. Long lunches.
The problem is also obvious.
Traffic.
Peak summer can turn a romantic road trip into an extended study of brake lights.
Go in spring or early autumn.
And don’t insist on driving every mile yourself. This is one route where combining a rental car with ferries, buses or private transfers can actually improve the trip.
Why fly for it: Because the road connects destinations that would already justify an Italian vacation.
Milford Sound gets the headlines.
The road getting there deserves nearly as much attention.
Tourism New Zealand describes the journey through Fiordland as one of the country’s great driving experiences, passing places such as Lake Wakatipu, Te Anau, Eglinton Valley, Mirror Lakes and the Homer Tunnel before arriving at Milford Sound. New Zealand
The drive from Te Anau to Milford can take far longer than the distance suggests because the road is winding and there are so many worthwhile stops.
That’s why I would stay in Te Anau rather than repeatedly treating Milford as a rushed day trip from Queenstown.
Winter requires additional caution and can bring delays or closures.
Why fly for it: New Zealand may be one of the world’s easiest countries in which to turn transportation into the main event.
Best version: Queenstown ? Te Anau ? Milford Sound ? return slowly, then continue elsewhere around the South Island.
Norway’s Atlantic Ocean Road is famous for its bridges jumping between small islands.
But I wouldn’t cross an ocean to drive only that stretch.
I would use it as one chapter of a much larger western Norway trip.
Condé Nast Traveler’s 2026 guide to Europe’s most scenic coastal roads singled out the Atlantic Ocean Road for the way its bridges connect islands directly across the exposed coastline. Condé Nast Traveler
Add fjords, mountain roads, fishing villages and ferry crossings and suddenly the famous bridge becomes part of something much more interesting.
This is also a good example of a road trip where the weather improves the mood even when it worsens the photograph.
Grey skies over western Norway somehow make sense.
Why fly for it: Norway delivers both spectacular engineering and landscapes that continually dwarf it.
I use a simple test.
A road trip is worth flying for when at least three things are true:
The road itself is memorable.
The overnight stops are destinations rather than necessities.
The landscape or culture cannot be replicated easily closer to home.
That eliminates plenty of attractive drives.
For a first major international self-drive trip, my shortlist would be:
Iceland for pure landscape variety.
Ireland for the best balance between scenery and culture.
New Zealand if you want an entire vacation that works beautifully by car.
South Africa if variety matters more than one iconic road.
Patagonia when adventure matters more than convenience.
They plan using distance.
You should plan using experience time.
A map may say today’s drive requires three hours.
Then you stop at a beach.
Then lunch takes ninety minutes.
Then somebody spots a trail.
Then the road becomes narrow.
Then sunset happens in precisely the place you had not scheduled.
Suddenly three hours becomes seven.
That’s not a failed road-trip day.
That’s the road trip.
I would generally plan no more than three to four hours of necessary driving on scenic days unless you deliberately need a transfer day.
Also remember that international driving introduces things you don’t deal with at home:
different road sides, rental-car rules, toll systems, insurance, mountain weather, fuel availability and unfamiliar signage.
Never schedule your longest drive immediately after an overnight flight.
Jet lag and beautiful roads make a poor combination.
The strange thing about a great road trip is that progress begins to feel unimportant.
You start with a route.
Then the route gets interrupted.
A beach looks better than expected.
A mountain disappears behind weather.
Lunch becomes dinner.
Somewhere that wasn’t marked as important becomes the part of the trip everybody remembers.
That is why the best road trips in the world are worth flying for.
They give you something air travel usually removes: the geography between places.
If I had one international road trip to book tomorrow, I would take Iceland’s Ring Road for the landscapes.
If I wanted the trip I would probably enjoy living inside for two weeks, I would take Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way.
And if I wanted the road to feel like a genuine expedition?
I would go south.
Way south.
To Patagonia.
Suggested Alt Text: There is a particular kind of happiness that happens when the air…
Airport hotels used to ask very little of themselves. A bed. Beige carpet. An alarm…
The northern lights are a terrible attraction for travelers who like guarantees. You can book…
A lion crossing an open plain and a mountain gorilla sitting quietly a few meters…
Patagonia looks simple on a map until you try to plan it. There is Argentina…
An adults-only resort sounds simple enough. No children. Pool loungers stay quieter. Dinner is less…
This website uses cookies.