7 Scenic Drives in America That Feel Like a Movie Set

Let’s face it, most drives feel repetitive and ordinary. You could drive miles upon miles without seeing anything interesting except fast food signs, an empty field that looks exactly like the last three empty fields, maybe some road kill to make things exciting.

We function almost entirely on autopilot because everything has looked the same since the highway system was invented. Very few things are grand enough to capture our attention out there on the road.

Every once in a while, though, you drive down a stretch of highway that almost feels too pretty—the kind of place that doesn’t just grab your attention but sparks your imagination. It’s as if it were created on the studio backlot in Hollywood’s dream factory. If you’ve ever wanted to feel that sudden shift—that moment when the world opens up around a curve—these drives are some of the best places to find it.

1. Beartooth Highway (Montana and Wyoming)
2. Overseas Highway (Florida)
3. Kancamagus Highway (New Hampshire)
4. Scenic Byway 12 (Utah)
5. Blue Ridge Parkway (North Carolina and Virginia)
6. Pacific Coast Highway (California)
7. Going-to-the-Sun Road (Montana)

Beartooth Highway (Montana and Wyoming)

Climbing to nearly 11,000 feet at its peak, the Beartooth Highway feels more like a journey through the Arctic than a drive through Montana and Wyoming. The road escalates into a vast expanse with lakes and patches of snow that stick around even through the summertime. Tight curves twist and turn up the mountain with each one revealing a gorgeous new view.

Once you get to the top, the horizon feels enormous, and the thin air gives the whole drive a visceral feeling as if you’re driving through the sky.

Overseas Highway (Florida)

If you ever wanted to feel as if you were driving across the ocean, then the Overseas Highway is the place to do it. With long stretches of roadway and the legendary Seven Mile Bridge serving as the only barrier between the sea and sky, the whole drive feels surreal.

As you move through the Florida Keys, the colors shift from turquoise to deep blue to glassy green, until a storm comes through and shifts the mood from bright and dreamy to dramatic in minutes. It’s a cinematic experience where the horizon, light, and water all work together to give you the type of scenery that can only be created when nature decides to show off.

Kancamagus Highway (New Hampshire)

When autumn is in its prime, there is no stretch of highway in America that makes you feel like you’re driving through an indie film quite like the Kancamagus Highway.

Originally built in the 1880s for logging and farming before being paved in 1964, the road twists and turns through dense woodlands, dipping into quiet valleys where the fog settles and softens everything around you. Early mornings are the most magical. Just trees, color, and the sound of your tires moving across the pavement. It’s a calm, atmospheric stretch of highway that makes even a short drive feel like a scene you want to keep rewinding.

Scenic Byway 12 (Utah)

Scenic Byway 12 feels like a highway that refuses to settle into one landscape for long. One minute you’re out in open desert, the next you’re gliding over slickrock, and before you know it, you’re climbing into cool, shaded forest.

The road passes over the Grand Staircase-Escalante cliffs and out into the alpine vistas of Boulder Mountain, making every part of this road feel different, as if the scenery on the road changes channels on you. This is a road that thrives on surprises and motion, being named one of only 37 roads in America to be labeled an All-American Road.

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Blue Ridge Parkway (North Carolina and Virginia)

If calmness and rhythm suit your taste better, then the second most visited site in the national park system awaits. Curvy roads hug the gentle blue and purple peaks that stretch out across the horizon. The beauty here is of a calm sort that touches even the most callous of souls. Mist rolls across the peaks at its own whimsy, covering the road trip with an almost dreamlike experience that makes the drive almost otherworldly. 

Pacific Coast Highway (California)

The Pacific Coast Highway doesn’t take its time. Cliffs drop straight into the Pacific, especially as you pass through Big Sur and cross the iconic Bixby Bridge, where the scenery is bold, dramatic, and impossible to miss.

At the time of its construction, the bridge was considered the tallest single-span concrete bridge on earth. It’s the kind of structure that frames the landscape in a way that seems like it was made to capture the drama of it all. The light seems almost directed at will, and the fog seems like a character of its own as it moves across the headlands and moves the coastline bit by bit. This is the California the movies want us to think it is—a bold and memorable place.

Going-to-the-Sun Road (Montana)

Going-to-the-Sun Road appears almost as if it were made to illustrate the beauty of Montana’s Glacier National Park. The road winds along cliff edges, its ingenuity a reminder of what human determination can carve into a mountainside.

Completed in 1932, taking over eleven years for engineers to design, it stretches out across broad mountain ranges with waterfalls thundering down their streams and stubborn snow patches that appear unconcerned with the summer’s temperature. Almost every other corner requires an attention-grabbing stop just because of the sight that arises there.