America's Top 10 Road Trips
With summer around the corner, the open road beckons. In that spirit, Becca Bergman reports on favorite American road trips from the West to the East. Some are well-known destinations and others are off the beaten path. Several are steeped in history, while a few pursue remote, wild beauty. Best of all, most of these routes make for splendid drives all year long, so you can get out and explore their bounty whenever the mood strikes. So rev your engines . . . and hit the road.
Making the list of top ten road trips is Maui’s very own Road to Hana. Driving Maui’s serpentine Hana Highway on the rural east side of the island provides a feel for Hawaii’s early days, when wild beauty and sleepy surf towns ruled. The famous road, also called the Road to Hana, starts in the town of Paia (about a 40-minute drive from Maui’s more developed southwest area) and wiggles east along the coast for more than 60 miles. With the route incorporating some 600 hairpin curves and dozens of one-lane bridges, the driving is as taxing as the sights are stunning. Leave some time to check out a few of the following: Keanae Arboretum, with an exotic botanical garden; Waikani Falls, a trio of crashing chutes; and Ka’eleku Caverns, an ancient site created from lava flow. Turn around at the peaceful village of Hana or, for the real finish-line reward, continue further to Haleakala National Park to camp among vegetation that grows nowhere else in the world.
Others include: Big Sur, Ca; Blue Ridge Parkway, NC; Going to the Sun Road, Montana; Million Dollar Highway, Ca; Red Rock Scenic Byway, Az; Sea Islands, Georgia; Seward Highway; Alaska; Sonoma and Nappa Valleys, Ca; and US Route 1, Maine. See the entire story!
