America’s Most Underrated Road Trip Is Right Under Your Nose

Every spring, the road trip industry creates a specific type of writing: the list of “best routes,” the revised pitch for the same popular locations, and the anticipated canonization of Route 66, the Pacific Coast Highway, and the Florida Keys. Compared to the typical rotation, the 661-mile route that Travel + Leisure selected the 2026 Road Trip of the Year is more intriguing.

The trip, dubbed the “Hidden Side of the West,” begins in Flagstaff, Arizona, and travels through some of the most breathtaking terrain in the American West while purposefully avoiding the crowds that have turned the more well-known parks into outdoor amusement parks rather than true wilderness. The road exists because its designers had a certain understanding. The well-known parks are overrun. Before social media found them, the lesser-known, quieter treasures within driving distance fulfill all the promises made by the well-known parks.

You can learn something about the idea from the route’s first significant stop. The South Rim, with its visitor center, established views, air-conditioned lodge with overflow parking, and attractive vista that has become an essential part of the typical American West road trip, is where the majority of Grand Canyon visitors drive. The North Rim is quite unique. It takes longer to drive in. There is little infrastructure for visitors. Some of the most stunning woodlands in the Southwest can be found on the route up to the rim. Even during the busiest time of year, the crowds pale in comparison to what the South Rim witnesses.

According to some reports, the view across the canyon is even more stunning, with deeper shadows, steeper cliffs, and the impression that you are viewing the canyon from the side that gives the geology its true magnitude. The North Rim, which is closed in the winter and only available from May to October, compensates the lengthier trip with the peaceful experience the canyon formerly provided to everyone prior to the South Rim being a popular tourist destination.

The route’s center passes through the more sedate areas of Zion before entering Nevada. The Narrows and Angel’s Landing, two of Zion’s most well-known trails, now need permits and timed entry reservations due to excessive visitor pressure. The park’s northern and eastern regions, which are less photographed and less busy, yet have the same striking geology without having tourists to fight for parking spaces at six in the morning. The road then enters a region of Nevada that is actually unfamiliar to the majority of American tourists. The closest large city is hours away from Great Basin National Park, which is located in eastern Nevada.

The park is home to groves of bristlecone pines, the oldest living trees on Earth, some of which are over 5,000 years old, and Lehman Caves, a marble-cavern system with intricate formations that is among the nation’s most underappreciated cave systems. The Great Basin receives far fewer visitors than similar national parks. For those who are prepared to drive, the experience frequently resembles visiting a national park in the early 1980s before the crowded age started.

The final section of Nevada Route 50, which has been dubbed “The Loneliest Road in America” since a 1986 LIFE magazine article, encapsulates something that modern American road trips have been missing for many years. Mountain ranges may be seen on every horizon as the route travels through long, deserted basin-and-range valleys in central Nevada. The towns along the road, such as Eureka, Austin, and Ely, maintain a small-town Western culture that has been mostly lost in the country’s more populated areas.

In 1986, the “loneliest” framing was intended as a cautionary tale. It serves more as an attraction by 2026. The experience is the absence of traffic. The size of the desolate scenery, the visible night sky, and the lack of the continual stimulus that characterizes most American road travel have all contributed to the true remoteness, which has grown to be seen as a luxury in and of itself.

The historical layer that the remainder of the itinerary relies on is added by the Route 66 connection. The trip is given a temporal context by the 100th anniversary of Route 66, which is being celebrated until 2026 with state-level events, museum programming, and a renewed wave of cultural attention.

The remaining portions of Route 66, including the portion that starts in Flagstaff, have been protected as historic byways despite the route’s official decommissioning in 1985. Driving them during the centennial year, when the communities along the route are holding celebrations and the surrounding cultural discourse is at its pinnacle, creates a more nuanced experience than simply traveling along scenic routes.

Considering how American road trip culture has changed over the last five years, it seems as though the traditional canon of “iconic” American journeys has reached saturation. Without making significant changes to the experience they were intended to offer, parks constructed for nineteenth-century visitor numbers cannot continue to accommodate twenty-first-century populations.

Something particular is reflected in the move toward the Hidden Side of the West, the slower pace of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the wildflower drives in the Texas Hill Country in March and April, and the stargazing routes in Southern Arizona. Travelers from the United States are searching more and more for the versions of these landscapes that were not ruined by the influx of tourists that their well-known neighbors were unable to handle.

That is just what the 661-mile route through Arizona, Utah, and Nevada provides. When the weather permits, schedule for April through June or September through October. Carry more water than you believe you’ll need. Recognize that the vacant sections are more important than the cost. By all accounts, the lengthier drive will be rewarded in ways that the more well-known routes can no longer provide.