USAs best cross country road trips: 7 trips from USAs best trips

USAs BEST CROSS-COUNTRY ROAD TRIPS

When does a place become so famous, or exert such an irresistible pull on the imagination, that it truly becomes an American icon? Well tell you: when its part of a classic American road trip.

Get your kicks on Route 66, snaking across the USAs heartland from the prairie capital Chicago to the palm trees of Los Angeles. Discover the often forgotten Lincoln Hwy, Americas first transcontinental route, which really stretches from sea to shining sea. Roll alongside the mighty Mississippi, searching out the best blues music, barbecue and small-town life. Ride the spine of the Wests rugged Continental Divide, or cascade down the tamer Appalachians on Shenandoahs Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Highway.

Cant leave the ocean behind? Cruise the Atlantic Coast from Massachusetts to Miami, peeking at the quirky side of US history. Or go west and soak up the spectacular beauty of the Pacific coast via jaw-dropping highways that stretch all the way from Mexico to Canada.

Some of the USAs most iconic road trips might be in your own backyard. Turn the page and find out.

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Sneer all you want, indie rockers. We know what classic tunes will get all the party people in the back seat singing along (or maybe playing air guitar):

King of the Road, Roger Miller

This Land Is Your Land, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings

Ive Been Everywhere, Johnny Cash

Truckin, Grateful Dead

Crosstown Traffic, Jimi Hendrix

Runnin Down a Dream, Tom Petty

Life Is a Highway, Rascal Flatts

Born to Be Wild, Steppenwolf

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TRIP 1

WHY GO Snaking across the nations belly, this fragile ribbon of concrete was the USAs original road trip, connecting Chicago with Los Angeles in 1926. Neon signs, motor courts, pie-filled diners and drive-in theaters sprouted along the way. Many remain, and tracing Route 66 today is a time-warped journey through small-town America.

Nostalgia and kitsch are your constant companions on the old thoroughfare. Nicknamed the Mother Road and Main Street USA, Route 66 became popular during the Depression, when Dust Bowl migrants drove west in beat-up jalopies. After WWII, middle-class motorists hit the road for fun in their Chevys. Eventually bypassed by interstates, Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985. Driving it nowadays means seeking out blue-line highways and gravel frontage roads.

The route kicks off in downtown Chicago on Adams St just west of Michigan Ave. Before embarking fuel up at Lou Mitchells. As if double-yolked eggs and thick-cut French toast arent enough, Lous serves free doughnut holes while you wait for your table, a free dish of ice cream after your meal and free Milk Duds (women only) to take on the road.

The insulin surge will propel your twisty, trafficky ride out of the city. Stay on Adams St for 1.5 miles until you come to Ogden Ave. Go left, and continue through the suburbs of Cicero and Berwyn. Brown Historic Route 66 signs, while few and far between, do pop up at crucial junctions to mark the way. At Harlem Ave, turn left (south) and stay on it briefly until you jump onto Joliet Rd. After 6 miles, Joliet Rd joins southbound I-55 (at exit 277), and youll be funneled onto the interstate.

Luckily, its a short stint on the big bad freeway. At exit 269 rejoin Joliet Rd heading south, which merges with Hwy 53. Soon the good stuff starts rising from the cornfields: a giant fiberglass spaceman in Wilmington, chili cheese fries at Braidwoods diner, a vintage gas station in Odell, and more.

Funks Grove, a 19th-century maple-sirup farm south of Shirley (exit 154 off I-55), is one of a kind. Yes, thats sirup (with an i), which means the product is naturally sweet, versus artificially enhanced. Try it at the farmhouse shop, or explore the trail-laced nature center and brooding graveyard nearby.

Get back on Old Route 66 (a frontage road that parallels the interstate here), and in 10 miles youll reach the throwback hamlet of Atlanta. Pull up a chair at the Palms Grill Cafe, where thick slabs of gooseberry, peach, sour-cream raisin and other retro pies tempt from a glass case. Tall Paul, a giant statue of Paul Bunyan clutching a hot dog, and the old-timey murals splashed across Atlantas buildings provide the routes top photo op in Illinois.

Keep following the brown 66 signs, leaving corn dogs, Abe Lincoln shrines, farms and grain silos in your wake. Before driving into Missouri, detour off I-270 at exit 3. Follow Hwy 203 south, turn right at the first stoplight and drive west to the 1929 Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. Open only to pedestrians and cyclists these days, the mile-long span over the Mississippi River has a 22-degree angled bend (cause of many a crash, hence the ban on cars).

Adventure doesnt just whisper in your ear as you swoop over the Mississippi River (back on I-270) toward Missouri. It grabs the wheel, presses the accelerator and powers you into St Louis, a can-do city thats launched westbound travelers for centuries.

To ogle the citys most iconic attraction, exit onto Riverview Dr and point your car south toward the 630ft-tall Gateway Arch, a graceful reminder of the citys role in westward expansion. For up-close views of the stainless-steel span and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial surrounding it, turn left onto Washington Ave from Tucker Blvd (12th St). The memorial honors Thomas Jefferson, the westward-thinking president behind the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Jefferson was also an early fan of ice cream, so if you dont have time for monuments, honor his culinary vision with a creamy treat from