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The 9 Best International Road Trips

9. Icefields Parkway

9. Icefields Parkway

Canada

Icefields Parkway wanders through 144 miles of Canada's most beautiful terrain, including two of their national parks and over 100 glaciers. The route makes a loop from Edmonton to Calgary, but you may want to hurry. This past May represented the 13th consecutive "hottest month in recorded history," so you may want to see those glaciers before they're gone.

(image via Bigstock)

8. The Alcan Highway

8. The Alcan Highway

Canada to Alaska

If you're looking for something a little more dramatic, this route will take you over 1,346 miles of Canadian and Alaskan wilderness, with plenty of stops along the way for hiking, hot springs, fishing, and more. You can even learn about dog mushing in Tok.

7. Tasmania's East Coast

7. Tasmania's East Coast

Australia

There are plenty of classic Australian road trips. One of the most popular is the Great Ocean Road, which absolutely deserves recognition for the incredible breadth of scenery in just four hours of drive time. But topping that in an Australian Traveller poll was this unique drive along the shimmering beach sands of this island state off the south coast of the continent.

(image via Bigstock)

6. North Coast 500

6. North Coast 500

Scotland

The North Coast 500 is a beautiful scenic route across the northern coast of Scotland. From castles to ruins to gorgeous beaches, this road launched in 2015 and immediately became bucket-list material worldwide. Starting and ending in Inverness, this road gets marketed as "Scotland's answer to Route 66," but the truth of the matter is you don't need a comparison. This 516-mile road is its own thing, entirely.

(image via Instagram)

5. Pirate Route

5. Pirate Route

Jamaica

This gorgeous 380-mile trip suggested by National Geographic sees you criss-cross the island of Jamaica nearly every way possible. It lets visitors explore not only the beautiful beaches, but also the sugarcane fields, mountains, and other areas you don't get to see if you never leave the resort. (Not that we'd blame you for not leaving the resort.)

4. Alpenstrasse

4. Alpenstrasse

Germany

The Alpine Road takes you through some of Germany's most beautiful views in one of its most culturally-rich regions. The road winds over 280 miles from Lindau to Schönau, showing you the rich green meadows, valleys, lakes, farming villages, and more that have found a home in the Bavarian Alps.

(image via Bigstock)

3. The Garden Route

3. The Garden Route

South Africa

The Garden Route is actually about half of the distance between Durban and Cape Town, but if you want to take the entire trip, the adventure is well worth it. Either way, you'll find incredible coastlines, animals that range from elephants to ostriches to great white sharks, amazing food from a cuisine most Americans are unfamiliar with, and much more.

(image via Bigstock)

2. The Pan-American Highway

2. The Pan-American Highway

North and South America

The Pan-American Highway stretches across both American continents, from Alaska to Chile. Of course, if you've had enough of North America, you can always just take the South American stretch, which can take you from Colombia all the way down to Ushuaia. If you'd rather see the interior of the country, there's always Bolivia's "Death Road," or wildlife spotting in the wetlands of the Pantanal, or anything else mentioned in our favorite rundown from Matador.

(image via Flickr)

1. The Silk Road

1. The Silk Road

Asia

The Silk Road is perhaps the most famous route in the history of civilization, and it's full of adventure and hidden history. It may take you less time by car than it took Marco Polo, but there's still a world of things to see and do, and the "road" itself is so vast that you could probably make a list of the ten best ways to tackle this one route on its own!

(image via Bigstock)