The UK lends itself ideally to road trips, with some fantastic and only lightly trafficked routes in various parts of the country that are just awaiting you and your car. One of my personal favourites is Scotland, despite its rainfall notoriety. The A68, which crosses diagonally from the A1M at Darlington up to Edinburgh and is largely speed camera-free, remains both picturesque and challenging and, while lacking the coastal attractions of the A1 north of Newcastle, it more than compensates with ancient lures, like Hadrian’s Wall, Kielder and the woollen mills of the Scottish Borders.
Once you drive even further north, the Scottish Highlands Region (off the A9, north of Perth) provides some of the most spectacular scenery in the UK. Continue to Inverness and the ‘Road to The Isles’ (A832) will provide a perfect blend of flowing, fast roads and fantastic sights. Drive to The English Lakes, Devon and Cornwall, or the South-East of England and you will encounter traffic snarl-ups and the inevitable rash of caravans. Yet, other English beauty spots, like The Cotswolds, or Rutland, can be surprisingly free of other traffic. Central and West Wales can also prove to be a driver’s delight.
If travelling further afield, consider renting a car, rather than taking your own, although the near continent does have its attractions for self-drivers, especially with beautiful places like Bruges (Belgium), Lille (on the Franco-Belgian border) and Abbeville (in Northern France) within very easy reach of the ferry port of Dover. The Republic of Ireland is also more than worthy of contemplation, especially for the ‘craik’.
It is worth bearing in mind that North America offers some of the lowest cost rental cars and cheapest fuel in the world, which makes it the No.1 rating for road-trippers. Naturally Route 66, the Florida Keys, Pikes Peak and The Pacific Highway are major draws for the truly adventurous. However China, now that it is significantly easier to reach and travel around, offers some of the most phenomenal driving routes, such as The Dragon Road. Also known as the Tianmen Mountain Road, it consists of 99 bends on its 11.3km roadway. China is rated in second place for road-trippers.
Driver friendliness, which includes fuel prices, road deaths per 1,000 capita, driving rules enforcement, road trip opportunities, pollution and congestion, and road quality have created a metric that specialist vehicle supplier, OSV, has turned into a definitive index to rank the top ten countries. Satisfyingly, the UK comes in third.
Although our fuel prices are among the worst, ranking in ninth place, just ahead of France, we can boast some of the lowest road traffic incidents. Correlating with this figure, Britain also does well in driving rules enforcement, ranking joint third place with China and Germany. While Londoners might take a contrary view, the UK also ranked third place for pollution and congestion, just behind Germany in first place, and France in second.
OSV’s other rankings are:
4th place Germany, which came first for congestion and second for road deaths
5th place Australia, which offers the second lowest fuel prices and third best road trips
6th place France, which came second for congestion and third for road quality
7th place Japan, which has the best road quality and came third for road deaths and fourth for pollution and congestion
Joint 8th place South Africa, which came fourth for fuel prices and road trips
Joint 8th place Brazil, which ranked fifth for fuel prices, driving enforcement and road trips
Joint 8th place India, which came fourth for fuel prices.
With the holiday season just around the corner and driving vacations really fitting in with the current trend for experiential travel, taking a road trip will get you closer to locals and is sure to take you to places the travel firms seldom frequent. If venturing abroad, make sure that you bull-up on the local Highway Code, to avoid unwelcome attention. If renting transport, be sure to read the small print, to avoid excess charges. If driving your own car, ensure that, should it need beam deflectors, or that a First Aid kit and fire extinguisher are required, you attend to them too.
