Growing up, my parents always took the scenic route when we went on road trips, preferring meandering back roads and frequent stops at roadside attractions to the direct, fast-paced highway system.
Fast-forward a decade or so, and my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I are getting ready to spend the weekend in St. Augustine, a trip that’s roughly 2 hours by …
Back roads nearly any day. Unless it's bad weather - then the Interstates have a little more wiggle room for error, which i prefer. Otherwise, back roads - better scenery, livlier driving and many times it's not much longer than taking the Interstate.
Back roads, whenever possible. Unless the weather (or the fellow travelers, or the rental car) is miserable. Lots of unexpected Roadside randomness to experience. Getting there & back are also part of the memories.
"Well, the road didn't cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn't drive on it to make a good time. They drove on it to have a great time." -Sally Carrera
The first three hours to my parents’ house is all interstate and, yes, it stinks: cars, potholes, police running radar.
But then we get off the highway and head due north through the backroads: turns, hills and cool stuff to look at. New and exciting things for our dog to poop on. And also deer and little to no cell service.
We figure it’s a good mix.
It depends, most of the time I will stick with the highways. But if I have some time to spare and we are taking our time on a trip I will look for the back roads. Going on the Classic Motorsports Road Tours has really opened my eyes to how many cool roads and attractions can be off the beaten path here in Florida.
I have driven from Austin Texas to Road America more than once. If you follow Mapquest, they tell you to drive North to Dallas and turn right on I 30. . . If you take the roads less driven, you angle across East Texas and Arkansas on highway 79 all the way to Memphis. Lots of interesting scenery and small towns with sights you would never see off the Interstate.
The drive from Memphis through Illinois is the most boring and radar infested highway I have ever been on. It is the only way to get through to Chicago and up t0 Road America.
On the way back I have driven through the Arkansas mountains on a beautiful four lane highway all the way to Paris, the one in Texas. Then back to slogging down I 35 to get back home!
Living in Austin, it's difficult to drive anywhere in town without getting on a highway, but I definitely try to avoid it whenever I can.
lagunamike said:On the way back I have driven through the Arkansas mountains on a beautiful four lane highway all the way to Paris, the one in Texas.
Fantastic film, by the way–Paris, Texas.
harrdware said:Back roads, whenever possible. Unless the weather (or the fellow travelers, or the rental car) is miserable. Lots of unexpected Roadside randomness to experience. Getting there & back are also part of the memories.
You perfectly summed up my thoughts on the matter. I get a little too excited when Google Maps suggests a non-highway route I've haven't been on yet.
Of course, it depends on the amount of time you have to get from Point A ot Point B. Luckily, this last summer I had 3 full days to drive my '69 E-Type Jag from Le Mans Classic back to the Portsmouth ferry at St. Malo. I already had lodging book in Chinon and a Chateux nest Rennes. Instead of taking the most direct and shortest routes, I turned on the Garmin GPS and checked the "NO Highways" and "No Ferries" opinion and let MIss Garmin tell me the way to go. It was great and got to see a lot of the Loire Valley I would have missed on the mortorways.
Too often, we're on a schedule to arrive at Point B at a specific time (checking in, meeting friends, etc.) So we typically opt for the more direct route if such exists.
But for our trip over this past Thanksgiving week, we did something we've always talked about: we took the direct route to the first two destinations (family one day, friends who are our family-by-choice the next). The time spent with our loved ones, some of whom we only see once a year if that, was wonderful.
And then we took the scenic route home. And WHAT a scenic route! Since our last visit with friends was in the San Francisco Bay Area, we opted to take the forest and coastal route home to northern Oregon, including a two-night stay at the southern end of the Avenue of the Giants, a redwood preserve in Humboldt County, California. We spent those nights at the Benbow Historic Inn, a hotel I stumbled across while writing a feature for "Forever MX-5" in 2008, and had wanted to visit ever since. It was a magical destination, with magical roads and sights all around.
We trusted to the luck of the road after that and made our decisions on the way, pulling off to investigate anything that seemed interesting. We loved Ferndale, California, a town founded in the late 19th century with beautifully restored Victorian architecture throughout. We tossed the dice and picked a motel from the Booking.com app on my phone and spent one night in Bandon, Oregon, a place I'd driven through once as part of the Oregon 1000 TSD rally some 15 years before. We headed north from there on Thanksgiving Day, where every eating establishment we passed was closed, till we arrived in Yachats, where our favorite restaurant there, right at the edge of the bay, was offering a VERY special prix-fixe dinner as a benefit for local charity.
I learned a few things, even this late in the game for me:
It's MUCH more enjoyable to allow the time to wander, to stop at all the fascinating roadside atrractions we'd passed on the way to the all-important destination, whatever it was. The drive down had its share of anxiety over arriving on time or finding our destination in an unfamiliar city. The liberty to say "That looks like fun, want to explore?" on the way home was one of those rare instances where reality matched or even exceeded expectations.
So we're starting to plan for a dream road trip I've had in mind for seven or eight years: Drive the MX-5 down from Oregon to San Diego, probably by direct routes. Spend a day or two there relaxing from the stresses of the Southern California freeway system.
And then return north by whatever road follows the coastline, as much as possible. Put the top down, watch the Pacific gliding past over my left shoulder, and stop when and where we want.
With the increase in traffic post-pandemic, my back-road route to the office doesn't take considerably longer than the highway and makes me hate humanity that much less (seems that folks have forgotten how to drive lately).
It's also a nicer route to drive when I take the project car to work (which is nearly invisible on the highway when crowded by all the trucks and SUVs), and I get to drive past a Ferrari/vintage sports car repair shop on the way, which always has something interesting out front ot look at.
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