Guides

Driving guides

Hand-written, data-driven guides to the world’s best driving roads: the highest passes, the great coastal drives and the twistiest hairpin roads.

Satellite view of Khardung La Guide · 30 roads ranked

The highest mountain passes you can drive

The highest paved roads on earth are a category of their own: thin air, snow banks into summer, and a road that climbs until the view falls away on every side.

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Satellite view of Ötztaler Gletscherstraße (Sölden Glacier Road) Guide · 30 roads ranked

The best driving roads in the Alps

No mountain range concentrates great driving like the Alps.

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Satellite view of Mangart Saddle Road Guide · 30 roads ranked

The best driving roads in the Balkans

The Balkans hold some of Europe’s last quiet driving.

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Satellite view of Lake Mývatn Loop Guide · 30 roads ranked

The best driving roads in Scandinavia and the Nordics

Nowhere rewards a patient drive like the Nordics.

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Satellite view of Abra Patapampa Guide · 13 roads ranked

The best driving roads in South America

South America drives on a scale Europe cannot match.

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Satellite view of Mae Hong Son Loop Guide · 10 roads ranked

The best driving roads in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia rides through jungle, rice terrace and limestone karst.

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Satellite view of Khardung La Guide · 10 roads ranked

The best driving roads in the Himalayas

The Himalaya and Karakoram hold the highest drivable roads on earth.

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Satellite view of Bealach na Bà Guide · 30 roads ranked

The best coastal drives in the world

A great coast road gives you two views for the price of one: the sea on one side, the land falling into it on the other.

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Satellite view of Duku Highway Guide · 30 roads ranked

The longest great driving roads in the world

Some roads are a corner; others are a journey.

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Satellite view of Spiti Valley Road Guide · 30 roads ranked

The world’s most hair-raising hairpin roads

A hairpin is the purest test of a road and a driver: full lock, a held breath, then the next one.

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Satellite view of Bealach na Bà Guide · 30 roads ranked

The best driving roads in the world

Every list of the world’s best driving roads ends in an argument, so here is mine, with its reasoning on the table.

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Satellite view of Bealach na Bà Guide · 30 roads ranked

The best driving roads in Europe

Roughly two-thirds of the catalogue is European, and not by accident: Alpine passes stacked with hairpins, Highland single-tracks, fjord roads that end at the water.

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Satellite view of Bealach na Bà Guide · 30 roads ranked

The best driving roads in the UK

Britain’s best roads are a particular pleasure: narrow, old, draped over the landscape rather than carved through it.

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Satellite view of Zion–Mount Carmel Highway Guide · 30 roads ranked

The best driving roads in America

American roads do scale like nowhere else: a coast road that runs for a hundred miles, a mountain pass that takes all morning, a desert highway with the horizon for company.

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Satellite view of Ötztaler Gletscherstraße (Sölden Glacier Road) Guide · 30 roads ranked

The highest roads in Europe

Europe’s highest tarmac lives above the treeline, where the air thins, the guardrails get optional and the season lasts four months.

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Satellite view of Hardknott & Wrynose Passes Guide · 30 roads ranked

The steepest roads you can drive

Steepness changes a road completely: first gear, a hot clutch and a windscreen full of sky.

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Satellite view of Cuesta de Lipán Guide · 30 roads ranked

Great driving roads you can drive in winter

Winter shuts the high passes, but it does not end the driving year.

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