The 8 Most Scenic Drives In Colorado – TravelAwaits

If I had to choose one state for a driving vacation — a state with as many scenic drives as possible — the choice would come down to two states: Colorado and California. Colorado has nothing like the coastline drive through California’s Big Sur, but it has almost everything else. Mountains, high plains, sand dunes, deep valleys — I don’t think I’ll ever tire of road trips around Colorado.

In fact, my wife and I spent more than half of our honeymoon driving around Colorado. We weren’t interested in getting a hotel on a beach somewhere for eight days; we knew we wanted our honeymoon to be different. We got married at the Grand Canyon, and we lived in Saint Louis, so we decided that our honeymoon would be eight days on the road. We made no plans — no reservations anywhere — just started at Point A (the Grand Canyon) and headed toward Point B (Saint Louis).

As it turned out, we spent four — almost five — days of the trip in Colorado. We drove almost an entire circuit around the state, entering from New Mexico in the southeastern corner, nearly ending up in Utah in the southwestern corner, and finally making our way through the center of the state and off to Nebraska in the northeastern corner.

We’ve returned many times since then, including once to explore the one corner of the state we missed on our honeymoon — the northwestern corner. So when I say that I’ve driven all over Colorado, I mean it. Many of these roads I’ve driven three, four, or five times. Here are eight of my favorites.