Best road trips in the UK in 2024

Sign as much as Simon Calder’s free journey electronic mail for skilled recommendation and money-saving reductions

Get Simon Calder’s Travel electronic mail

Going on a road journey lately isn’t all about opening your self as much as the freedom of the freeway. It’s equally about doing issues otherwise: from selecting flexibility to minimising your vacation carbon footprint and decreasing emissions by opting to not fly. Especially in case you’re going electrical.

And make no mistake: the UK may not have the guidelines desert-scapes and nostalgia-adorned highways of the US, or the extensive open areas and wonders of Australia, but it surely’s uniformly thrilling for road journey itineraries.

The Highlands instils a way of journey, whereas Yorkshire is terrific at any time of 12 months – and no person bats an eyelid in Devon or Cornwall when a top-down coupe rolls into city.

Here are our favorite road trips that, in impact, double as a information to exploring a few of the most stunning elements of the UK.

Read extra on UK journey:

The North Coast 500, Highlands

The precursor to so many newfangled UK road trips, the North Coast 500 overwrites any Route 66 picture with mighty glens, mountains and moorlands, beating rains and coastal splendour. The 516-mile super-loop from Inverness by Caithness, Sutherland, and Ross and Cromarty is now overly common from May to September, but it surely nonetheless holds its personal in winter or spring for its bumper-to-bumper sights. Highlights abound, however embody Dunrobin Castle, Smoo Cave in Durness, and a hike up sugarloaf-like Suilven. northcoast500.com

Best lodge

The Torridon is a fantasy Brigadoon fort hemmed in by dragon-scale mountains and a monstrous sea loch. Inside, the story is of luxurious rooms, a whisky bar, a Michelin-worthy restaurant, and all the tartan trim you can want for.

Doubles from £299 an evening.

Best factor to do

The detour to Applecross alongside the curler coaster Bealach na Bà single observe.

Best restaurant

Ullapool’s Seafood Shack has gone from word-of-mouth foodie vacation spot to bestselling cookbook success. Open from April to October, it serves creel-caught langoustines, scallops, mussels and extra.

The Atlantic Highway, Devon and Cornwall

Cutting by a spectacular chunk of England’s southwest alongside the A39, this coastline-hugging drive stays a rock pool of seaside custom: there are fishing cities chock-a-block with breeze-swayed boats, squeaky sands resulting in fish and chip outlets, bracing clifftop walks and browsing adventures. Beyond that, the road results in the one way or the other semi-imaginary, but not-so-distant Land’s End.

An straightforward 70 miles from Barnstaple to Newquay, this journey is greatest taken in virtually slow-motion, not pushed in just a few hours. Your first stops ought to be beachy Bude then Tintagel, the place the legends of King Arthur are remembered due to the stays of a fort raised above the nibbled shorefront. Otherwise, you’ll wish to shuck saintly seafood in Padstow from city pin-up Rick Stein, then it’s surf’s up in Newquay solely 17 miles away. No stag or hen dos, please. visitsouthwest.co.uk

Best lodge

Overlooking Fistral Beach, The Headland Hotel is a traditional – come for the wind-whipped cottages and surf views, keep for the spa and swanky Aqua Club retreat.

Best factor to do

Widemouth Bay, a beachfront invaded by locals and droves of out-of-towners any time there’s blue sky.

Best restaurant

Outlaw’s New Road in Port Isaac, run by Rick Stein protege and a number of Michelin-star winner Nathan Outlaw.

The Yorkshire Dales, Yorkshire

Not all the time on the transfer like Essex, or as visitors jammed as the Lake District, the roads round the coronary heart of God’s Own County are extra of the comforting kind, curving by stone-walled farmlands, prickly hills, forested dales, and steepled market cities.

So set off from Harrogate in direction of historic Grassington earlier than motoring on from Wensleydale to Swaledale. It provides consolation to the core: Wallace and Gromit-approved cheese in Hawes, plus all-weather yomps to the spritzing Aysgarth Falls. You’ve additionally come for the thrill of driving over Buttertubs Pass, the excessive road by Yorkshire Dales National Park, and for War of the Roses historical past of the kind that causes ripples of pleasure. On that entrance, how about time-stopped Middleham Castle or Jervaulx Abbey, two ghostly relics adrift in the moors?

Otherwise, if sea views and mussed-up hair are extra your factor, then – as luck would have it – there’s the Route YC alongside the Yorkshire Coast. Pick from six themed itineraries between Whitby and Withernsea.

Best lodge

Country home lodge Simonstone Hall in Hawes is a rambly, homicide thriller kind of place, as a lot for metropolis slickers as humble road trippers.

Best factor to do

Stock up your automotive boot with world-class cheese at the Wensleydale Creamery Visitor Centre.

Best restaurant

The Black Sheep Brewery, the place a pint of cask-conditioned ale is all the time welcome. There’s a superb bar kitchen and brewery excursions too.

Causeway Coastal Route, Antrim and Derry

The jigsaw piece steps of the Giant’s Causeway at the midway level of this 130-mile stunner are 60 million years previous – so it matches that there’s usually a way that point has stopped. Start in Belfast beside Titanic’s Dock & Pump House, the place the ocean liner was conceived in the early 1900s, then shift up a gear for the Gobbins Cliff Path – this sucker-punch of a cliff face stroll was carved out of basalt rock at the finish of the nineteenth century.

Journey’s finish is the walled metropolis of Derry, however earlier than that there’s Glenarm Castle and the jewelled greens of the Glens of Antrim, and, maybe, a ship journey detour throughout the Sea of Moyle to Rathin Island. You’ll be in the firm of puffins and seals in case you do. Back on the fundamental road west, it’s onwards to Dunluce Castle and Portrush for championship golf. discovernorthernireland.com

Best lodge

In the thick of the motion, close to the Giant’s Causeway, The Bushmills Inn is a training inn from the 1600s – now it’s the coast’s loveliest boutique.

Best factor to do

Old Bushmills Distillery, for a tot of Irish whiskey for whoever’s not driving.

Best restaurant

Low-key Harry’s Shack in Port Stewart serves up high-class seafood dishes like lobster and native crab.

The Road to the Isles, Highlands

In the previous few years, road trips have popped up round Scotland as usually as umbrellas do on a summer season’s day. Some embody: the North East 250 in Aberdeenshire, The Kintyre 66 in Kintyre, The Coig in Ayrshire, and the Southwest 300 round Dumfries and Galloway.

The Road to the Isles is arguably the unique, as it could actually hint its historical past again to the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie. There’s just one road to observe – the A830 – and it swallows up 45 miles from Fort William to the finish of the tarmac in the ferry port of Mallaig. Justifiably, it additionally claims to be the true coronary heart of Jacobite Scotland, so linger at superb Glenfinnan, the place the Jacobite rising began in 1745, then hike the hills round Loch Shiel and Glenfinnan Viaduct (the prepare line made well-known in the Harry Potter movies).

Then it’s onto Arisaig, Mallaig, and the unspoiled Silver Sands of Morar, a pearly string of blue-on-gold seashores as large as any in the UK. Perhaps, although, the final reward is what awaits at road’s finish: the spine-winding sight of the Small Isles of Eigg and Rhum, then their Hebridean sister Skye, which broods darkly on the horizon.

Best lodge

The Sleeping Car at Glenfinnan Station Museum is a sidetracked railway coach turned 10-bed bunkhouse.

Bunks from £90pp for a two-night keep.

Best factor to do

Follow the Alternative Coastal Route alongside the B8007 for direct entry to secluded bay after bay.

Best restaurant

Overlooking Mallaig Harbour, The Bakehouse and Crannog Pizzeria is for watching the bobbing fishing fleet and chasing off scrap-chasing seagulls.

Dreaming of an epic road journey over the pond? Here’s the way to do the nice American road journey