The Best USA Road Trips for UK Visitors
There's a moment when you pull out of the hire car lot, hit
the first stretch of open American highway, and feel something shift. The road
ahead is wide, the sky is vast, and anything seems possible. At American Sky,
we've been sending UK travellers across the Atlantic for over two decades, and
road trips are genuinely some of our most loved holidays. Here are our ten best
USA road trips for UK visitors - from the legendary to the underrated.
1. Route 66 - Chicago to Santa Monica
Best for: History lovers, Americana enthusiasts,
bucket-listers
Duration: 15–21 nights
If there's one road trip that defines the American spirit,
it's this one. Over 2,200 miles from Chicago to the Santa Monica Pier, Route 66
is gloriously, defiantly unlike anywhere else on Earth. Start with breakfast at
Lou Mitchell's in Chicago -an institution since 1923 that's been sending
travellers westward for a century. From there, highlights come thick and fast:
the Gemini Giant in Wilmington (a 30 foot fibreglass spaceman, still standing
sentinel since 1965), Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo (ten spray-painted
Cadillacs buried nose-first in the desert - bring a can, contributing is
encouraged), Santa Fe's adobe streets glowing amber at dusk, and ultimately the
Grand Canyon, where no description quite prepares you for that first glimpse of
the rim.
One thing to know: large sections of Route 66 no longer
exist as a continuous signed road. Travelling with a specialist means your
itinerary is built around the stretches genuinely worth driving.
Our 15-night
Ultimate Route 66 self-drive is designed to catch every highlight without
the guesswork.
2. California's Pacific Coast Highway - San Francisco to San
Diego
Best for: Scenery, beach culture, foodies
Duration: 10–14 nights
Ask anyone who's driven it: the Pacific Coast Highway is one
of the most beautiful drives on the planet. Allow two or three days in San
Francisco first - cross the Golden Gate Bridge on foot in the fog, because the
views from the northern headlands on a misty morning are genuinely more
dramatic than on a clear day. Head south through Santa Cruz before the route
reaches its emotional peak at Big Sur, where the Bixby Bridge arcs across a
gorge in a single concrete sweep and an 80-foot waterfall at McWay Falls drops
directly onto a deserted beach. Don't rush this section; it deserves a full
day.
Santa Barbara feels like the Californian Riviera - Spanish
Colonial architecture, palm boulevards, a working harbour. Los Angeles delivers
its greatest hits (Griffith Observatory, Venice Beach, the Sunset Strip), and
San Diego rounds it all off: relaxed, sun-drenched, home to more than sixty
beaches. A city almost everyone underestimates before they arrive and doesn't
want to leave.
Choose from either our California
and the Pacific Coast Road Trip or Golden
California Road Trip.
3. Utah's Mighty Five
Best for: National parks, hiking, photography
Duration: 10–14 nights
Utah genuinely surprises people. The landscapes here - and
we say this having seen a great deal of the USA - are unlike anything else on
Earth. The Mighty Five national parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce
Canyon and Zion) form a circular route from Salt Lake City that's among the
most spectacular drives anywhere in the world.
Base in Moab for Arches, where over 2,000 sandstone arches
glow from orange to deep red to purple in the last light of the day, and the
slightly quieter Canyonlands to see the Island in the Sky with panoramas of the
Colorado River. At Bryce Canyon, thousands of hoodoos - spire formations that
look like trees made of stone - cover an amphitheatre in shades of pink and
amber. Zion closes the loop: hike the Narrows, a gorge with walls rising a
thousand feet above your head, with the river rushing around your knees. One
practical note: timed-entry permits for popular parks now sell out weeks in
advance.
See our Self-Drive
Grand Canyon, Monument Valley & the Mighty Five for the full
experience.
4. New England - Boston, Maine and Vermont
Best for: History, autumn foliage, coastal charm
Duration: 7–12 nights
New England is a road trip that UK visitors discover later
than they should and then wonder why they waited. Boston is the natural
starting point - walk the 2.5-mile Freedom Trail through 16 Revolutionary War
sites, from Paul Revere's house to the Old North Church. Head north into Maine,
where Kennebunkport rewards those who venture beyond the tourist centre to find
lobster traps piled on the wharves at Cape Porpoise. Portland, Maine is one of
New England's most exciting food cities right now.
Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park are the crown jewels - Cadillac
Mountain is the first place in the continental US where the sun rises each
morning. In late September or early October, the 40-mile Acadia Byway offers
some of the finest autumn foliage in the country. Vermont and its covered
bridges, maple syrup farms and the charming town of Woodstock complete a
circuit that's as visually rich as any in America.
Our Highlights
of New England Road Trip is 11 nights and captures the best of the region.
5. The Capital Region - Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland
Best for: History, culture, families
Duration: 10–12 nights
This route packs more layers of American history into a
relatively compact area than almost anywhere else in the country. Begin in
Washington DC - all 19 Smithsonian museums are free to enter, a fact that still
astonishes visitors. The National Mall is staggering, the 14th & U Street
dining scene genuinely impressive.
Pick up the car and join Skyline Drive through Shenandoah
National Park - 105 miles of ridgeline road through the Blue Ridge Mountains, beautiful
at any time of year but extraordinary in autumn. Continue south through
Charlottesville (Thomas Jefferson's university town, home to Monticello) and on
to Colonial Williamsburg, one of America's great living history experiences:
costumed townspeople, cobbled streets, candlelit taverns. Virginia Beach has
the world's longest pleasure beach; Annapolis, Maryland, is a beautifully
preserved maritime colonial town where delicious blue crab is served at every
waterfront restaurant. A fitting final stop at George Washington's Mount Vernon
estate brings the whole history-rich journey full circle.
Our Explore
the Capital Region 10-night self-drive covers the whole of this route.
6. The Deep South - Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans
Best for: Music, food, culture
Duration: 9–12 nights
Three cities, each with its own unmistakable sound, each one
deeply rooted in a culture that gave the world something genuinely important.
Nashville for country and honky-tonks on Broadway; Memphis for Beale Street
blues, Sun Studio (where Elvis and Johnny Cash both recorded), and dry-rub ribs
at the Rendezvous restaurant down an alley off Union Avenue. Then New Orleans -the
food, the jazz, the French Quarter, the sheer singularity of a city that defies
every comparison. You can plan it, but nothing fully prepares you.
Our Nashville,
Memphis and New Orleans Road Trip runs 9 nights.
7. The Great Southwest - Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Monument
Valley
Best for: Wow-factor scenery, adventure
Duration: 7–10 nights
Las Vegas makes a surprising amount of sense as a road trip
base - good flight connections, great car hire, and within striking distance of
some of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth. Head south-east to Hoover Dam
(726 feet of curved white concrete that simply cannot be appreciated in
photographs), then on to the Grand Canyon. The mistake UK visitors make here is
spending an hour at the South Rim and leaving. Stay for sunset and sunrise.
Watch the walls change colour through the day.
Continue to Monument Valley, then to Antelope Canyon near
Page, Arizona - a sandstone slot canyon where the curved walls are lit by
shifting shafts of light in the morning. Guided tours are required and worth
booking well in advance. Upper Antelope Canyon is the most photogenic; Lower
Antelope Canyon the less crowded.
The Canyon
Adventure Road Trip from Las Vegas is a brilliant 7-night introduction.
8. The Florida Keys - Miami to Key West
Best for: Beaches, couples, slow travel
Duration: 7–10 nights
Overseas Highway stretches 113 miles from the Florida
mainland to Key West, crossing 42 bridges between small coral islands with the
Atlantic on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other. Key Largo sits above
the only living coral reef in the continental US; Bahia Honda State Park,
halfway down, is one of the most beautiful beaches in Florida -soft white sand,
warm shallow water, an old railway bridge looming overhead. The Seven Mile
Bridge that follows is iconic for good reason. Key West ends the road with
Mallory Square sunsets that draw crowds every evening, and backstreet Old Town
lanes draped in bougainvillea that reward anyone who wanders off Duval Street.
Our
Miami
& The Keys 10-night multi-centre takes care of everything staying in
three locations.
9. The Blue Ridge Parkway - Virginia to North Carolina
Best for: Scenic drives, autumn foliage, hiking
Duration: 5–8 nights
The Blue Ridge Parkway runs 469 miles through the
Appalachian Highlands with a 45mph speed limit, constant overlooks, and no
petrol stations or commercial development visible from the road. It's designed
to make you slow down and look - and in October, when the mountains are burning
with colour, it rewards that patience spectacularly. Asheville, North Carolina,
sits just off the parkway and is one of the South's most creative small cities,
home to excellent restaurants, craft breweries, and the extraordinary Biltmore
Estate - a 250-room Vanderbilt château open for tours and wine tasting. The
road ends at the edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited
national park in the United States.
And if four wheels aren't enough, our Blues,
Blue Ridge and BBQ 7-night guided motorcycle tour covers the parkway on a
Harley-Davidson from Nashville to Washington DC, tackling the legendary Tail of
the Dragon - 318 curves in 11 miles - along the way.
10. Pacific Northwest - Seattle to Portland via the Oregon
Coast
Best for: Nature, food and drink, independent travellers
Duration: 8–12 nights
The Pacific Northwest is the most underrated road trip in
America for UK visitors. Seattle is the natural starting point - spend a day at
Pike Place Market watching fishmongers at work, take the ferry across to
Bainbridge Island, and let the city's easy, walkable energy settle over you
before you pick up the car keys. From Seattle, the route heads west to the
rugged Olympic Peninsula, where the moss-draped Hoh Rain Forest and the
dramatic sea stacks of Ruby Beach and Rialto feel genuinely remote. The historic
maritime town of Astoria, Oregon, sits where the Columbia River meets the
Pacific, and its waterfront cannery buildings and panoramic Astoria Column make
it one of the most rewarding stops on the entire drive.
Portland is a city that defies easy description -
progressive, creative, full of food carts and independent bookshops (Powell's
City of Books occupies an entire city block) — and the route home through Mount
Rainier National Park, where glaciers and alpine meadows surround one of North
America's most imposing volcanoes, is a spectacular finale.
Our Self-Drive
Pacific Northwest Explorer covers the full 12-night circular route from
Seattle
Plan Your Road Trip with American Sky
We've been planning USA road trips for UK travellers for
over two decades, and the honest truth is they work best when someone who knows
the country well has done the groundwork. Every holiday is ATOL-protected and
fully tailorable to your pace and budget. Give our team a call on 01342 395509 or
visit AmericanSky.co.uk