World’s 50 best winter road trips include two California treasures
Most borders are open, and planes have been jetting off hither and yon for a while now, but the popularity of road trips shows no sign of waning — nor should it. You’re in your own little bubble, going wherever you please, stopping when the spirit moves you and exploring at your own pace. What’s not to love? (Besides high gas prices, of course.)
Big 7 Travel recently teamed up with EnjoyTravel, an international rental car site, to release a ranking of the 50 best winter drives in the world, a list that includes spectacular routes in Iceland, Taiwan, Bolivia and more. How did they choose? The metrics included sightseeing appeal, Google trends data and a route’s wow factor. The 140-mile Icefields Parkway, for example, stretches from Banff (wow) to Jasper (also wow) through the Canadian Rockies (wowing all the way). There’s an Indiana route that takes you through 31 historical covered bridges in Parke County, and a Patagonia circuit that includes seven mountain lakes in Argentina. You can wind along Bolivia’s Death Road — elevation 10,000 feet, no guardrails — or circle the island of Taiwan. Yosemite National Park comes in at No. 16 on the top 50. And Lake Tahoe is ranked No. 31, although we’re a bit bemused by the list’s conclusion that Tahoe’s “Sand Harbour is a mustsee since it never freezes, making it the ideal spot to cool down.” Not sure that we want to cool off in 54-degree water in the middle of ski season, but hey, you do you.
Here are the 12 North American routes from the list. You’ll find the complete ranking with all 50 winter drives at www.enjoytravel.com/en/ travel-news/epic-road-trips.
1. Icefields Parkway, Canada
2. Parke County, Indiana Covered Bridge Tour, USA
3. Great Smoky National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee
4. Bow Valley Parkway, Canada
5. Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
6. Yosemite National Park, California
7. Taos Scenic Byway, New Mexico
8. The Grand Loop Road, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
9. Lake Tahoe, California and Nevada
10. Highway 240, South Dakota
11. Route 100, Vermont
12. Arches National Park, Utah