Favorite scenic drive?
I'm looking forward to retirement in two years and plan on taking a long trip from Florida to Alaska and back. I'm looking for scenic drives and side trips. What is your favorite scenic stretch and ...
Forum Discussion
Wherever you go, make every second count - life is so short. It's all good...
I love towing the TT and there are no roads that bother me. The hillier and curvier, the better. :) Some may want less challenging drives tho. From now on, we plan to go slower and stop more often when we see something interesting. It's too easy to get wrapped up in getting to where you are going and can miss out on a lot that you may never get the chance to see again. DW won't leave home without preplanning every route from start to finish and checks roads online including looking at videos of the roads and checking for things like road construction.
A couple of years ago I tried to find some books tailored specifically to RV-ing in the US but there is next to nothing. Besides that, an RV can be anything from a pop-up to a large MH and needs and wants can be quite different. The only book I could find relating to RV-ing is Frommer's Exploring America by RV - too much detail on CGs & RV parks and not a lot on the sights and scenery in between. I bought a few books on road tripping by car that are better and worth a read - Scenic Highways & Byways by NatGeo, United States On The Road by Insight Guides and USA 101, A Guide to America's Iconic Places, Events, And Festivals by NatGeo.
Can't help with BC, we don't RV here but I know that a trip on Vancouver Island from Victoria (out of Port Angeles) to Courtenay is really nice. From Courtenay can take the ferry to Powell River, down the Sunshine coast to West Vancouver and then up to Whistler and onto Pemberton and towards Kamloops. Could also go up to Nanaimo and the by ferry over to Vancouver before heading northwards. We've only been in the western States & western Colo so far. The Cascades in Wa. are fabulous. Leavenworth, Mt. Ranier and Mt. St. Helens are worth seeing. The rolling grasslands of eastern Wa. are uninspiring. The Wa. coast is nice but you won't see much ocean. Olympic NP is very nice. One of my favorite drives is from Anacortes and the ferry to Port Townsend and hwy 101 along the east side of Olympic NP and then over to Ocean Shores and then down to the SW corner of Wa. From there, it's then onto the Or. coast that is a must see.
One of my favorite RV-ing trips has been the Or. Cascades out of Portland on hwy 26 & 97 to the Ca. border. We liked it so much, we're doing again this summer. Northern Ca. is great, and the Redwood forests are another must see. The coastal area south of San Francisco is very nice. The Monterey and Carmel area is really nice.
Parts of Route 66 sound really interesting and I want to do some of that one day. Sometimes it's the destination and not the drive getting there that is even more fun. The summer we're going from BC as far south as Vegas before heading home and will be staying at a CG nearby for 5 days. It's such a crazy place, it's an opportunity that can't be missed. The CG has a shuttle into the casinos too.
The only places I won't go through with an RV are Seattle and LA. I-5 between San Francisco & LA is on my never again list. If last summer was any indication, this summer could be another bad year for forest fires up and down the western US and Canada and you may want to have a plan B ready in case you need to change routes. Having a GPS and mobile hotspot (like Verizon) and laptop would be a good thing to have regardless of where you go.
I love towing the TT and there are no roads that bother me. The hillier and curvier, the better. :) Some may want less challenging drives tho. From now on, we plan to go slower and stop more often when we see something interesting. It's too easy to get wrapped up in getting to where you are going and can miss out on a lot that you may never get the chance to see again. DW won't leave home without preplanning every route from start to finish and checks roads online including looking at videos of the roads and checking for things like road construction.
A couple of years ago I tried to find some books tailored specifically to RV-ing in the US but there is next to nothing. Besides that, an RV can be anything from a pop-up to a large MH and needs and wants can be quite different. The only book I could find relating to RV-ing is Frommer's Exploring America by RV - too much detail on CGs & RV parks and not a lot on the sights and scenery in between. I bought a few books on road tripping by car that are better and worth a read - Scenic Highways & Byways by NatGeo, United States On The Road by Insight Guides and USA 101, A Guide to America's Iconic Places, Events, And Festivals by NatGeo.
Can't help with BC, we don't RV here but I know that a trip on Vancouver Island from Victoria (out of Port Angeles) to Courtenay is really nice. From Courtenay can take the ferry to Powell River, down the Sunshine coast to West Vancouver and then up to Whistler and onto Pemberton and towards Kamloops. Could also go up to Nanaimo and the by ferry over to Vancouver before heading northwards. We've only been in the western States & western Colo so far. The Cascades in Wa. are fabulous. Leavenworth, Mt. Ranier and Mt. St. Helens are worth seeing. The rolling grasslands of eastern Wa. are uninspiring. The Wa. coast is nice but you won't see much ocean. Olympic NP is very nice. One of my favorite drives is from Anacortes and the ferry to Port Townsend and hwy 101 along the east side of Olympic NP and then over to Ocean Shores and then down to the SW corner of Wa. From there, it's then onto the Or. coast that is a must see.
One of my favorite RV-ing trips has been the Or. Cascades out of Portland on hwy 26 & 97 to the Ca. border. We liked it so much, we're doing again this summer. Northern Ca. is great, and the Redwood forests are another must see. The coastal area south of San Francisco is very nice. The Monterey and Carmel area is really nice.
Parts of Route 66 sound really interesting and I want to do some of that one day. Sometimes it's the destination and not the drive getting there that is even more fun. The summer we're going from BC as far south as Vegas before heading home and will be staying at a CG nearby for 5 days. It's such a crazy place, it's an opportunity that can't be missed. The CG has a shuttle into the casinos too.
The only places I won't go through with an RV are Seattle and LA. I-5 between San Francisco & LA is on my never again list. If last summer was any indication, this summer could be another bad year for forest fires up and down the western US and Canada and you may want to have a plan B ready in case you need to change routes. Having a GPS and mobile hotspot (like Verizon) and laptop would be a good thing to have regardless of where you go.
