What are the main named road trips in the UK?

Some of the best-known named road trips in the UK include the North Coast 500 in Scotland, The Wales Way (with the Cambrian Way, Coastal Way and North Wales Way), the Atlantic Highway in south-west England, the Cumbria Coastal Route, and historic touring routes such as Hadrian’s Wall. Some are officially branded routes, while others have gained their names over time.

Are named road trips the same as scenic drives?

Not always. Many scenic drives are unnamed, while named road trips usually follow a broader narrative — a coastline, a mountain region, or a historic frontier — rather than a single stretch of road.

Do you have to drive a named route in full?

No. Many travellers experience named routes in sections, often without realising it. Coastal stretches, mountain passes and historic corridors are frequently driven as part of wider journeys before people recognise them as a single named road trip.

How long do UK named road trips usually take?

Most named UK road trips work best over 3–7 days, depending on the route. Longer journeys like the North Coast 500 reward 10–14 days, while coastal and regional routes often suit shorter, slower itineraries.

Are named road trips suitable for slow travel?

Yes. Named touring routes often prioritise scenery, walking opportunities and local stops over speed or distance, making them ideal for unhurried travel.

From coastal roads to ancient frontiers, the journeys that shape Britain

The UK’s Named Road Trips You May Know Without Realising

A guide to the UK’s most recognisable named road trips and scenic touring routes
How long to allow, what defines each journey, and why these roads shape the way we travel
From coastal drives to historic frontiers, a way to see Britain through its roads rather than its destinations

Named Road Trips in the UK: Scenic Drives & Touring Routes Explained

Britain is full of scenic drives, but only a small number are recognised as named road trips or official touring routes. Some — like the North Coast 500 — were deliberately branded to showcase a region. Others are older scenic routes, coastal roads or historic corridors that gained their names organically, shaped by geography, habit and long-distance travel rather than marketing.

What links these journeys is not how they were created, but how they are experienced. These are scenic driving routes that reward slow travel, where the road itself begins to matter as much as the places it connects. In some cases, people set out specifically to follow the full route. In others, they will already have driven parts of it — along a coastline, through a mountain pass, or across an ancient frontier — without ever thinking of it as a single, named journey.

Once you know the name, the drive changes. A road becomes a route. Individual stops begin to form a pattern. And the journey starts to feel intentional — less about getting somewhere, more about understanding how landscape, history and movement fit together.

Five Named Routes That Define British Road Travel

North Coast 500 – It remains the UK’s best-known scenic road trip and the benchmark against which other touring routes are judged.
The Wales Way – It is one of the few examples of a nationally designed scenic driving route in the UK.
Atlantic Highway – Often loved as one of England’s best coastal road trips.
Cumbria Coastal Route – A quieter alternative to the Lake District’s interior, and one of England’s least crowded coastal scenic routes
Hadrian's Wall – Britain’s oldest border road

North Coast 500 — Scotland’s Ultimate Scenic Loop

The North Coast 500 - also known as the NC500 - has become shorthand for the idea of a British road trip. Looping around the far north of mainland Scotland, the North Coast of Scotland links remote coastal scenery, empty roads, and some of the most dramatic landscapes in Europe. What makes it special isn’t just the coastline, but the contrast: fertile farmland near Inverness gives way to mountain passes, empty beaches, and long, exposed headlands where the Atlantic and North Sea meet.

While most travellers set out intentionally to complete the full loop, many people will have driven sections of the route — around Inverness, along the west coast, or through Sutherland — long before they realised those roads formed part of a named journey.

Most travellers allow 5–7 days at a minimum, though 10–14 days gives the route the breathing space it deserves. Driving days are rarely long in mileage, but progress is slow — and that’s the point. This is a scenic route designed around stopping, walking, and simply absorbing scale.

Key highlights along the way include:

Bealach na Bà and Applecross Peninsula
Sutherland’s empty north coast beaches
Assynt’s mountain scenery
Duncansby Stacks and the far northeast cliffs
Historic fishing villages and crofting landscapes

The Wales Way — A Country Mapped for Scenic Driving

Wales is unusual in having an official national framework designed specifically for touring by road. The Wales Way brings together three distinct scenic routes — the Cambrian Way, Coastal Way, and North Wales Way — which together trace mountains, coastline, castles, and rural heartlands.

Rather than a single loop, this is a modular road trip, where travellers mix and match sections depending on time and interest. Expect 3–5 days for one route, or 7–10 days to combine them into a wider journey. Driving times are modest, but roads are often slow and scenic, winding through valleys, passes, and coastal edges.

Highlights naturally vary by route, but include:

The reservoir roads of the Elan Valley
Mountain scenery through mid-Wales
Castles at Conwy and Caernarfon
Coastal stretches above Cardigan Bay
Snowdonia’s foothills and upland passes

Image copyrighht: Visit Wales

Atlantic Highway — England’s Atlantic Edge

Following the A39 along the wild edge of North Cornwall and North Devon, the Atlantic Highway, part of the Complete Cornwall Coastal Route is one of England’s most quietly powerful scenic drives. It doesn’t cling to the coast at every moment — instead it weaves inland and back out again, revealing the Atlantic in sudden, dramatic glimpses from clifftops and headlands.

This is a route best savoured over 3–5 days, allowing time to stop at harbours, coastal paths, and beaches shaped by Atlantic swell. Daily driving hours are short, but the density of places to explore encourages a slow pace.

Notable highlights include:

Clifftop views near Hartland Point
The harbour village of Clovelly
Bude’s rugged coastline
Estuary landscapes around Bideford
Long coastal walks and hidden coves

Cumbria Coastal Route — Where Mountains Meet the Sea

While the Lake District’s interior draws the crowds, its coastline remains one of northern England’s most underrated scenic routes. The Cumbria Coastal Route follows the Irish Sea from the Solway Firth past harbours, cliffs, and estuaries, with the fells rising quietly inland.

This is a gentle, spacious drive, ideal over 3–4 days, with modest daily mileage and wide horizons. Roads are easy-going, and the experience is defined less by drama than by openness — sea views, red sandstone cliffs, and distant mountain silhouettes.

Key places along the route include:

St Bees Head and its coastal paths
Georgian Whitehaven harbour
Ravenglass and the Esk estuary
Views across the Solway Firth
Western Lake District backdrops

Hadrian's Wall — Britain’s Oldest Scenic Border

Hadrian’s Wall stretches coast to coast across northern England, but it is rarely explored as a single, continuous drive. Instead, most travellers encounter it in sections — woven into wider journeys through Northumberland and Cumbria — where Roman history, open landscapes and quiet roads combine to create one of Britain’s most atmospheric touring experiences.

Following the line of the wall by road reveals a changing frontier. In Northumberland, it runs across broad, exposed ridges and open moorland, where forts and milecastles sit high above the surrounding countryside. Further west, the landscape softens into farmland and river valleys as the wall approaches Cumbria, where Roman sites are naturally explored as inland detours from the coast.

Allow 2–4 days to experience Hadrian’s Wall properly, combining short drives with walks, viewpoints and historic stops rather than long hours behind the wheel. It works best as part of a longer northern journey — whether integrated into a Cumbria Coastal Route, where sea views give way to upland history, or explored alongside the castles and landscapes of Northumberland’s coast, where the wall cuts across one of Britain’s most evocative borderlands.

Key highlights along the way include:

Housesteads and Birdoswald Roman forts
Ridge-top wall sections in central Northumberland
Open moorland landscapes shaped by the frontier
River valleys and farmland in western Cumbria
Connections between coastal routes and inland history

Seeing the Road as the Journey

What ultimately connects these named scenic routes is not their length or their headline sights, but the way they shape experience. These are roads that have earned their names because they create coherence — linking landscapes, history and rhythm into something that feels intentional to travel. They slow you down. They give context to what you’re seeing. They turn movement itself into part of the story.

Once you start travelling this way, Britain reveals a different logic. Not a checklist of destinations, but a web of journeys — coastal edges, mountain crossings, ancient borders and inland heartlands — each with its own character and pace. Some of these routes you will seek out deliberately. Others you may realise, only in hindsight, that you have already been following.

Either way, recognising the road changes how you travel. It encourages you to think less about where you are going next, and more about how you are moving through the landscape — and why that particular stretch of road has mattered for generations before you.

The best-known named road trips in the UK include the North Coast 500 in Scotland, the Wales Way (with its three routes), the Atlantic Highway in south-west England, the Cumbria Coastal Route, and historic touring routes such as Hadrian’s Wall. Some are officially branded, while others gained recognition over time
Not always. Many scenic drives remain unnamed, while named road trips usually follow a broader narrative — a coastline, a mountain region, or a historic frontier — rather than a single stretch of road.
No. Many travellers experience named routes in sections, often without realising it. Coastal stretches, mountain passes or historic corridors are frequently driven as part of wider journeys before people recognise them as part of a named road trip.
Most named UK road trips work best over 3–7 days, depending on the route. Longer journeys like the North Coast 500 reward 10–14 days, while coastal and regional routes often suit shorter, slower itineraries.
Yes — they are often designed around it. Named touring routes tend to prioritise scenery, walking opportunities and local stops over speed or distance, making them ideal for unhurried travel.
The North Coast 500 is the UK’s most internationally recognised road trip and functions as a complete loop. Many other UK routes are linear, modular or designed to be combined with detours rather than followed end to end.
Yes. England has several recognised scenic touring routes, including coastal routes such as the Atlantic Highway and Cumbria Coastal Route, as well as historic routes like Hadrian’s Wall.
Because they change how people travel. Naming a route turns a collection of roads into a journey, helping travellers understand how landscape, history and movement fit together rather than treating destinations in isolation.