Mental Floss Scenic Drives

Mental Floss editors published a five-route spring road-trip roundup on April 4, steering readers toward drives in Hawaii, Utah, the Mountain West, the California desert, and New England. (mentalfloss.com) The list names Kuhio Highway on Kauaʻi, a Badlands-to-Yellowstone route through South Dakota and Wyoming, Utah’s “Mighty Five,” a Las Vegas-to-Joshua Tree drive, and a Coastal and Colonial New England itinerary. The article was by Nitya Rao, Eden Gordon, and Logan DeLoye. (mentalfloss.com) Mental Floss framed the picks as editor recommendations rather than a ranked survey or data study. Its examples lean on roads that connect major gateways with well-known landscapes, including national parks, island coastlines, and historic seaside towns. (mentalfloss.com) Several of the routes line up with established tourism corridors that are easiest to drive in shoulder seasons, when weather is milder and summer crowds have not fully arrived. The Blue Ridge Parkway, one of the country’s best-known scenic roads, runs 469 miles between Shenandoah National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (nps.gov; nps.gov) Utah’s “Mighty Five” is already a state tourism brand built around Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Zion. Visit Utah pitches the parks as anchors for a broader southern Utah driving loop through nearby towns, monuments, and state parks. (visitutah.com; visitutah.com) The Hawaii pick also fits that pattern. Hawaii Route 56, known as Kūhiō Highway, is the main highway along Kauaʻi’s north and east shore, and Mental Floss highlights stops including Poʻipū Beach, Wailua Falls, Kīlauea Lighthouse, Hanalei Bay, and Keʻe Beach. (mentalfloss.com; en.wikipedia.org) The desert route from Las Vegas to Joshua Tree links one of the country’s busiest air hubs with a park where the Mojave and Colorado deserts meet. The National Park Service describes Joshua Tree as a place of dark skies, rock formations, and two distinct desert ecosystems in Southern California. (mentalfloss.com; nps.gov) Some scenic-road favorites come with practical limits that spring travelers have to watch. Glacier National Park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road, another classic mountain drive cited by Mental Floss in a separate December list, opens on a seasonal schedule and was fully open for the 2025 season on June 16, underscoring how snowpack can shape road-trip timing. (mentalfloss.com; nps.gov) The new roundup lands as road-trip coverage remains a steady part of Mental Floss’s travel vertical. The site published another scenic-drives piece on March 2 built around five routes “that rival Route 66,” including the Pacific Coast Highway, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the Overseas Highway. (mentalfloss.com) Taken together, the April list is less a map of hidden backroads than a guide to recognizable American drives that turn airports, park entrances, and coastal highways into multi-day itineraries. (mentalfloss.com)