Move over, Route 66. In its centenary year, America's most storied highway has been knocked off the top spot by a much shorter drive closer to home: the Scottish Highlands.
A survey of 2,000 UK adults by USA holiday specialist Ocean Florida asked which road trips families most want to tick off. The Highlands came first, with 31 per cent of respondents naming Scotland's winding roads as their dream drive — pipping Route 66, chosen by 28 per cent. It's a quiet vote of confidence in domestic travel: instead of a 2,448-mile haul from Chicago to Santa Monica, Brits are dreaming of rugged coastal scenery, white-sand beaches between Inverness and Corrieshalloch Gorge, and island roads past crumbling castles and fields of wild cattle.
The rest of the top ten is a mix of the familiar and the achievable. Australia's Great Ocean Road, with its string of beaches between Torquay and Allansford, took third, followed by California's Pacific Coast Highway. Iceland's Ring Road came fifth, then Miami to the Florida Keys, Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way, a Florida fly-drive adventure, Germany's Romantic Road and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Five of the ten are American routes, so the love affair with US driving holidays clearly isn't over — Ocean Florida's Natalie Sexton noted that Route 66 turning 100 is a reminder of why road trips endure: the freedom to stop wherever catches your eye and build an itinerary around the family rather than the other way round.
The survey also touched on why people drive rather than fly straight to a resort. More than half of respondents (56 per cent) said the best family memories are made on the road, and the top reason for choosing a road trip was the chance to stop at roadside attractions along the way.
For travellers, the takeaway is simple: you don't need a transatlantic flight for a bucket-list drive. The Highlands offer world-class road-trip material within a few hours of most UK cities — lochs, single-track island roads, seafood stops and some of Britain's most dramatic coastal stretches. And if you do fancy the classic American experience, 2026 marks a century since Route 66 was established, making it an obvious year to finally drive it.
