Ten epic road trips for your someday list

Some journeys demote every destination to a supporting role. On these ten roads the driving is the holiday: volcano deserts, corniche cliffs, whale-watching lay-bys and hairpins engineered by lunatics. None requires special vehicles or rally skills — just time, a loose plan and the discipline to stop whenever the view demands it, which is constantly. Petrol stations are plot points; playlists are essential kit.

Thirteen hundred kilometres around an island that changes costume hourly: waterfalls you walk behind, black-sand beaches, glacier lagoons calving icebergs beside the tarmac. A week is the minimum; ten days lets you detour into the eastern fjords. Summer gives midnight sun and easy driving. Every fuel stop sells surprisingly excellent hot dogs — this becomes important.

Scotland's answer to Route 66 loops the Highlands from Inverness: single-track roads over the Bealach na Bà pass, beaches that impersonate the Caribbean until you touch the water, castles, distilleries and stags in the mist. Five days minimum, campervan optional but thematic. Book beds ahead in summer — the secret is thoroughly out — or go in May and June for the light.

Fifty kilometres of corniche stitched into cliffs between Sorrento and Salerno, with lemon terraces above and fishing villages in pastel stacks below. The driving is slow, occasionally hair-raising and never boring; Positano and Ravello supply the espresso stops. Go shoulder-season — May or late September — when the road breathes. Alternatively, be chauffeured and just gawp.

Between Mossel Bay and Storms River, South Africa compresses forests, lagoons, whale coasts and mountain passes into three hundred easy kilometres. Kayak with seals at Plettenberg Bay, cross the Storms River mouth on suspension bridges, detour inland for ostriches and the Cango Caves. June to November adds southern right whales breaching offshore. Driving is easy; leaving is not.

Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles is the myth that delivers: Golden Gate fog, Big Sur's cliffs and condors, elephant seals lolling at San Simeon, surf towns fading into LA haze. Drive north to south to keep the ocean on your side. Three days minimum with stops at Monterey and a Big Sur lodge — book the latter early; the redwoods have a following.

Built over the Carpathians as a Cold War statement, the Transfăgărășan ladders up through ninety hairpins to a glacial lake at two thousand metres, then plunges past waterfalls towards a castle linked to Dracula. It's open roughly July to October and ranks among the world's great driving roads. Combine with Transylvania's fortified villages for a week that feels like fiction.

Australia's south-coast classic saves its trump card for the end: the Twelve Apostles, limestone towers standing in the Southern Ocean's spray. Before that come surf beaches, eucalyptus forests full of dozing koalas at Kennett River and lighthouse headlands. Two or three days from Melbourne is ideal. Sunset or helicopter for the Apostles — ideally both, honestly.

At 2,500 kilometres, Ireland's west-coast route is less a road trip than a lifestyle, so pick a chapter: the Ring of Kerry for lakes and lamb-blocked lanes, Connemara for bog and mountain, Clare for the Cliffs of Moher dropping 200 metres into the Atlantic. Distances are short but the stopping is compulsive — pubs, harbours, sudden beaches. May and September give the best light without the coach traffic. Budget double the driving time Google suggests; the detours are the point.

Only eight kilometres long, but what kilometres: Norway's Atlanterhavsveien hops between skerries on a chain of causeways and one show-off bridge, the Storseisundet, which from certain angles appears to launch cars into the sea. Come in calm summer weather for picnics on the islets, or — for the brave — in an autumn storm, when waves break clean over the tarmac. Fold it into a longer route via Ålesund and the Trollstigen hairpins. Stop at every lay-by; they're engineered for gawping.

The 230 kilometres between Banff and Jasper may be the most scenic tank of petrol on earth: turquoise lakes (Peyto is the poster child), the Athabasca Glacier grinding down almost to the road, and a fair chance of elk or a black bear in the verges. Do it over two days with a night at a lakeside lodge, and fill up before leaving — services are scarce. June to September keeps the viewpoints open; park passes are required and checked.