Guide
Great driving roads you can drive in winter
Winter shuts the high passes, but it does not end the driving year. Low passes, coastal roads and moorland crossings come into their own when the crowds go home and the light gets long. These are the roads in our catalogue we rate for winter, each one still mapped, fact-checked and worth the trip in January.
Cuesta de Lipán41 mi · 1 h 22 min · 17 hairpinsView the roadbook ›
Distance
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1
41 mi1 h 22 min
Cuesta de Lipán
When Europe freezes, the Andes are in high summer. Argentina’s Ruta 52 climbs from Purmamarca to 4,170 m and drops to the Salinas Grandes salt flat, and its best season is precisely the northern winter, the dry, clear months of the southern spring and autumn when the altiplano light is at its sharpest. This is the joy of a winter driving list: while the Alps are shut, this flawless high serpentine is at its finest. Drive it in the northern winter, take the altitude seriously, and swap grey European skies for the technicolour quebrada and the blinding white of the salt.
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2
17 mi39 minSani Pass
A southern-hemisphere giant at its best when the north is frozen. The 4x4-only gravel climb up the Drakensberg wall into Lesotho, thirteen hairpins and gradients to 1-in-3, is driveable year-round but rewards the southern winter, the dry season, when the skies are clear even if snow can dust the summit any month. While the Alpine passes sleep under snow, the highest pub in Africa is pouring at the top of this one. Drive it in low range, take your time on the hairpins, have the beer at the summit, and enjoy a great mountain pass in the months the northern ones are shut.
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3
47 mi2 h 3 minTrampolín de la Muerte
A road for the dry window, whenever the north is wet. Colombia’s Trampolín de la Muerte is a single-lane gravel shelf over cloud-forest cliffs, and the one rule that matters is dryness: one night of rain can close it for days, so it is driven in the drier spells, which for this equatorial road fall around the northern winter. It earns its winter-list place as a great drive available when European roads are snowbound. Drive it dry, slow, in daylight, lights on, giving way to the trucks, and never look down on the most notorious road in South America.
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4
20 mi41 minTeide Caldera Traverse
Alpine scenery, but open all year. The TF-21 climbs into the caldera of Teide across mile after mile of rust-red lava with a 3,715 m cone overhead, and unlike any Alpine high road it is driveable every month, the Canary Islands' subtropical latitude keeping it clear when the continent’s passes are gated shut. Winter can occasionally ice the summit stretch and dust the peak with snow, which only sharpens the otherworldly scene. This is the answer to a European winter: volcanic high-altitude driving two hours from a warm beach. Drive it at golden hour, layer up for the top, and have your mountain fix in January.
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5
12 mi24 minAl Hada Escarpment Road
Ninety-three bends down the Hejaz, and a winter road by climate. The Al Hada road drops 1,300 m off the escarpment toward the Tihamah plain in an unbroken cascade of hairpins, and its best season is the cool northern winter, when the Saudi highlands are pleasant rather than searing and the fog on the top bends is the only complication. Beautifully surfaced dual carriageway, it is pure driving pleasure. Drive it in winter at dawn, watch for the baboons on the barriers and the trucks grinding between Taif and Mecca, and count the bends on a road that comes into its own exactly when Europe’s are frozen.
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6
38 mi1 h 19 minSpreetshoogte Pass
A desert plunge best driven in the southern summer, the northern winter. Namibia’s steepest pass tips off the Khomas escarpment toward the Namib in gravel ramps to 1-in-4.5, the desert floor a thousand metres below, and its season runs through the northern winter months when the desert light turns the plains to copper. While the Alps sleep, this is one of the great desert driving days on earth. Drive it downhill in the late afternoon for the sunset, mind the corrugations and the loose gravel on the steep descent, and take a road that shines exactly when the northern passes shut.
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7
125 mi4 h 21 minMae Hong Son Loop
Thailand’s great loop, and a cool-season road by design. The 1,864-curve mountain route from Chiang Mai through Pai to Mae Hong Son is at its best in the northern winter, the cool dry season from November to February, when the jungle switchbacks are clear of the monsoon and the hilltribe country is at its most beautiful. This is a winter-list road because winter is precisely when you should drive it, escaping the European cold for warm mountain air and endless corners. Take two or three days, overnight in Pai, drive it in the dry cool months, and treat the 1,864 curves as the whole point.
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8
6 mi13 minJebel Hafeet
Perhaps the world’s finest purpose-built road, and a winter road by desert climate. This immaculate 12 km ribbon spirals up Abu Dhabi’s highest mountain in more than sixty sweeping turns, rising 670 m from the desert floor, and its season is the cool northern winter, when the Gulf heat relents and the flawless tarmac can be enjoyed rather than endured. It is engineering as pure driving pleasure, faultless asphalt through a mix of hairpins and fast sweepers. Drive it up in winter, ideally toward dusk when the desert cools and the lights of Al Ain spread out below, and savour one of the best-surfaced great roads anywhere.
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9
66 mi2 h 18 minSanetti Plateau Road
The highest all-weather road in Africa, and a dry-season drive. From Goba the road climbs onto the Sanetti Plateau above 4,100 m, crossing Afro-alpine moorland of giant lobelia and Ethiopian wolves beneath the 4,377 m Tullu Dimtu, before the long descent of the Harenna escarpment into cloud forest. Its season is the northern winter dry months, when the plateau tracks are firm and the wildlife is out. This is high, strange, wildlife-rich driving available exactly when the northern mountains are shut. Drive it in the dry season, take the altitude seriously on the plateau, and watch for the wolves on the roof of Africa.
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10
39 mi1 h 11 minRoute Napoléon (Grasse to Castellane)
An Alpine road you can actually drive in January. The Route Napoléon climbs from Grasse into the Provençal pre-Alps in long flowing sweepers, and unlike the high passes it stays open all winter, low enough and southerly enough to be driveable when the Stelvio and the Galibier are gated shut. This is the winter answer for anyone who wants mountain driving without the snow, history and big views and sunlit curves in the depths of the season. Drive it on a crisp clear winter day, follow the emperor’s 1815 route up toward Castellane, and enjoy pre-Alpine driving in the months the real Alps refuse.
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11
25 mi50 minIzu Skyline
A ridge-top toll road with Fuji in view, open through the winter. The Izu Skyline runs 40.6 km along the spine of the Izu Peninsula, a natural balcony with Sagami Bay on one side and, on a clear day, Mount Fuji floating to the north, and its relatively low elevation keeps it driveable through the Japanese winter when the high roads close. Winter is in fact the best time for the Fuji view, the cold clear air lifting the mountain out of the haze. Drive it on a bright winter morning, take the ridge slowly for the twin-bay and Fuji panorama, and enjoy a great Japanese driving road in the season it looks its best.
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12
20 mi36 minSouth Coast at Vík
Iceland in winter is the whole point. This Ring Road stretch from Skógafoss to the black-sand village of Vík runs past waterfalls and glaciers and basalt stacks, fully paved and kept open year-round, and the winter is when it comes alive: aurora over the black beaches, ice on the falls, the low sun barely clearing the horizon. Where most great roads shut for the season, this one offers its finest drama in the dark months. Drive it in winter with real care for the wind and the ice and the drifting sand, keep to the daylight hours, and see the Icelandic south coast at its most otherworldly.
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13
18 mi44 minSwartberg Pass
Thomas Bain’s 1888 masterpiece, 27 km of gravel switchbacks held up by dry-stone retaining walls, climbing to about 1,585 m between two karoos.
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14
108 mi2 h 50 minOverseas Highway
42 bridges and a hundred miles of open water to Key West.
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15
13 mi23 minCol de Montgenèvre
One of the lowest and oldest Franco-Italian Alpine crossings, a historic Roman and Napoleonic route from Briancon into Piedmont.
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16
13 mi27 minThe 309 Road
Twisting gravel crossing of the Coromandel Range famed for its many bends and kauri grove.
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17
7 mi12 minColle del Sestriere
A wide, fast Piedmontese climb to the chocolate-box ski resort of Sestriere, woven into Tour and Giro folklore.
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18
19 mi42 minMount Hamilton Road
Endless switchbacks from San Jose up to Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton.
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19
10 mi20 minSierra de Aitana Road
Alcoy to the Guadalest valley over the passes of inland Costa Blanca.
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20
6 mi11 minParnassus Delphi to Arachova Road
A high balcony road on the flank of Mount Parnassus linking the ancient oracle of Delphi with the stone village of Arachova, above the silvery olive sea of the Pleistos valley.
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21
15 mi27 minFoothills Parkway (Western Section)
Ridge-running National Park parkway with open views to the high Smokies.
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22
14 mi32 minCarretera de la Cabra
The Road of the Goat, a serpentine old mule route from the Granada hills to the Tropical Coast.
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23
18 mi41 minMacquarie Pass
Steep, tight hairpin climb of the Illawarra escarpment between Albion Park and Robertson.
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24
3 mi6 minMeteora Monastery Road
The short panoramic loop through the Meteora rock pinnacles above Kalambaka and Kastraki.
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25
21 mi47 minHaleakala Crater Road
The paved road to the top of Haleakala climbs from Maui’s central plain to 3,055 m, gaining more height over a shorter distance than any road on earth, through multiple climate zones to an otherworldly summit crater.
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26
16 mi30 minKirishima Kogen Road (Ebino-Maruo)
A volcanic highland traverse from the Ebino Plateau down to Maruo Onsen, winding among steaming peaks and crater lakes of the Kirishima range.
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27
6 mi13 minCol de Vence
The Riviera back-country road carmakers head straight for when launching a new car, a twisting climb above Vence into a lunar plateau.
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28
15 mi31 minHai Van Pass
Vietnam’s most iconic coastal mountain pass, made world-famous by Top Gear, threading 21 km over a 496 m summit between Da Nang and Lăng Cô with the sea far below.
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29
4 mi7 minNatchez Trace Parkway (Tennessee)
The northern Tennessee reach of the 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway, an unhurried National Park Service parkway that opens at the cathedral-like Double Arch Bridge over Birdsong Hollow near Franklin.
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30
6 mi11 minFlexenpass
A dramatic Vorarlberg pass road clinging to a cliff face through avalanche galleries, linking Stuben with the chic resort of Lech.
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