Road trips are an American pastime, and the arrival of spring urges us to get out and embrace the fresh outdoors as landscapes across the country burst with budding trees and blooming wildflowers.
Check out our list of America's seven best spring drive trips for a refreshing springtime outing near you.
1. Death Valley National Park, California
Thanks to heavy rains last fall and again in January, Death Valley and other Southern California desert areas are alive and blooming. The normally brown, arid landscape is now colorfully punctuated with patches of wildflowers.
This is especially true along Artists Drive and Badwater Road between the Inn at Furnace Creek and Badwater Basin — where desert sand verbena, primrose, desert gold, notch-leaf phacelia and the magenta blooms of the beavertail cactus make for great flower spotting and photography.
2. Historic Columbia River Highway, Oregon
The nation's first highway specifically designed for sightseeing, and the first scenic byway to be designated a National Historic Landmark, this marvelous road meanders through the Columbia River Gorge on a 70-mile route from Troutdale to The Dales.
Waterfalls are the leading attraction in the Gorge, and they are at their high-water best in the spring. The granddaddy of them all is massive two-tiered, 611-foot Multnomah Falls. A misty mile-long hike leads to the top for great views of the Gorge. Look for pretty purple Columbia kittentails in shaded areas along the path.
Farther along, you can learn how power is generated at Bonneville Dam or take a spin on Hood River's "Fruit Loop," a country route lined with orchards, wineries and you-pick farms.
3. High Road to Taos, New Mexico
Time moves slowly in Northern New Mexico's Hispanic highlands, where past and present, mountains and desert, overlap among the rural villages of Chimayo, Cordova, Truchas and Las Trampas. You'll want to take your time as well as you motor along the scenic two-lane 44-mile High Road from Española to Taos.
Take in a string of ancient adobe churches, the studios of noted weavers and wood carvers, colorful roadside produce stands, and finally, Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in America.
April and May are usually good for wildflowers, including fleabane, fireweed, arnica, columbine and verbena.
4. Hill Country Bluebonnet Trail, Texas
Lady Bird Johnson famously led a campaign to beautify America with flowers, and in her native Texas, she oversaw planting of vast fields of bluebonnets along highways throughout the Hill Country.
For a spring spectacular, start in Austin with a visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, then head west on U.S. 290 about 57 miles to Johnson City's Wildflower Loop. Continue north on U.S. 281 for 36 miles to Burnet — the official bluebonnet capital of Texas.
5. Creole Nature Trail, Louisiana
Enter this National Scenic Byway near Lake Charles, and you find yourself in a vast wilderness of prairie, marshland, swamps, bayous, wildlife refuges and a pristine 26-mile stretch of Gulf Coast beach — all collectively referred to as Louisiana's Outback.
You'll see plenty of spring flora here, including coreopsis, tropical sage, mallow, lantana, horsemint and Indian blanket, but visitors are usually more impressed by the alligators commonly seen along the 180-mile route and the amazing diversity of bird life.
Louisiana ranks among the top 10 states for the number of bird species (with nearly 400). On any given spring day, you'll likely see raptors such as hawks and osprey, waders including herons, egrets and roseate spoonbills, waterfowl such as teals, grebes, moorhens and snow geese — plus smaller migratory species such as warblers, swallows, kingfishers and orioles.
6. Natchez Trace Parkway, Mississippi and Tennessee
This two-lane, 444-mile parkway linking Natchez, Mississippi, and Nashville, Tennessee, is a federally maintained National Scenic Byway and one of 31 All-American Roads, so designated for its historic and cultural significance as well as its scenic attributes.
The route dates back almost 10,000 years when it served as a migratory path for American bison and other wildlife. Native Americans, following "traces" of bison and other game, further developed the route as a walking trail, convenient for commerce. Later, farmers and boatmen from the Ohio Valley used the trace to return north after delivering goods to southern ports via the Mississippi River.
Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the late 1930s, the parkway makes for a beautiful two- or three-day drive, especially during the spring months when roadsides are rimmed with flowering redbud, dogwood and Chickasaw plum trees. Highlights along the route include some of the largest ceremonial mounds in America, built between 1300 and 1600 by the Natchez Indians, ruins of antebellum plantations and Cypress Swamp, a surrealistic tupelo/bald cypress swamp where a long boardwalk allows you to stroll among the towering cypress, just inches above the water.
7. Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina and Virginia
Connecting Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway is often cited as "America's Favorite Drive." No wonder — as the parkway presents endless mountain and valley vistas and an extraordinary variety of flora and fauna, numerous historical and cultural attractions, plus plenty of opportunities for recreation.
The parkway is most popular during late spring when rhododendron and azalea burst into full color. Top attractions include the Blue Ridge Music Center in Virginia, where you can learn about the roots of American music, and North Carolina's Linville Falls, a spectacular three-tiered waterfall that cascades into Linville Gorge, known as the "Grand Canyon of the Southern Appalachians."
