Some Possibilities For Interesting Car Trips

In the U.S., car trips can be fun and or varied.  The only exception would be in big cities where taxi cabs, in my opinion, would make more sense.

Some possibilities for interesting car trips in the U.S. are:

Driving in the Northeastern states of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine during the Fall season, when colorful foliage appears in the mountainous areas around quaint villages.

Driving a portion of the famous "Route 66", which opened up the western states to drivers.  Route 66 is no longer an active highway, but its 2000-mile path from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California is well marked, travels through varied terrain, and contains many interesting sights along or just off the highway. For example, driving south from Chicago on historic Route 66 (now Interstate highway 55 in that area), tourists can visit Springfield, Illinois, the hometown of President Abraham Lincoln. Along the way, get off the highway and stop in some typical midwestern communities for a meal and see the American way of life. The longest existing part of Route 66 is in Arizona.

Driving up the Pacific seaboard, especially between Los Angeles and San Francisco, using the coastal highway.

Driving off the uninteresting Interstate highway system onto secondary highways for at least a part of the journey, to see farms and travel into smaller communities. If you saw the animated motion picture, "Cars", it featured characters in a little town that was formerly on Route 66, but was bypassed by a new Interstate highway.

If you are a confident driver, you may want to rent a vehicle just to drive around the environs of a city or take a single or multiple-day side trip. For example:

Around Los Angeles, the sights are scattered from San Diego (two hours south), Orange County (Disneyland area), and the areas of downtown, Hollywood, and the beach areas of Venice, Santa Monica, Malibu and even more distant Santa Barbara.

Around San Francisco, a trip over the Golden Gate Bridge to waterfront communities along northern San Francisco Bay and onward to the wine country around Napa.

Around Orlando, an easy trip 45 miles east to the surfing community of Cocoa Beach and the Kennedy Space Center, where mankind first departed to the Moon.

Around Miami, a trip into the Everglades swamp and over bridges from island to island along the Overseas Highway to Key West.

Around Seattle, a trip west into the forests of the Olympic National Park area.

Around Washington DC, a drive into nearby Virginia to see the home of George Washington at Mount Vernon, and onward to the more distant Blue Ridge Mountains.

Around Las Vegas, a trip into the nearby desert parks, either just outside the city, or the more distant sights like Death Valley or the Grand Canyon.

Around Boston, driving South towards Plymouth Rock, West towards the Mohawk Valley, and North to Maine, where on the way there are exits that will take you to some of the oldest towns in the nation, many of them located right on the water and having fresh local seafood or in the case of the Mohawk Valley, wild forests full of bears and the Appalachian Trail.

In my younger days, I enjoyed driving on vacations since I felt there were more sights to see.  However, now I just prefer to drive to a given area and have a cab drive me around.