6 route & road-trip ideas
A journey through Appalachian scenery can connect Asheville, the US 23 corridor, Pikeville, Charleston and Marietta. Build it as a flexible regional trip, with time for towns and viewpoints rather than a fixed set of old turn-by-turn directions.
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The Parkway provides spectacular mountain and valley vistas, quiet pastoral scenes, sparkling waterfalls and colorful flower and foliage displays as it extends through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and North Carolina.
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The Skyway offers the cultural heritage of the Cherokee tribe and early settlers in a grand forest environment in the Appalachian Mountains. Enjoy mile-high vistas and brilliant fall foliage, as well as great hiking opportunities and picnic spots in magnificent and seldom-seen portions of the southern Appalachian National Forests.
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Travel back in time and explore history and beautiful scenery on the Forest Heritage Scenic Byway (U.S. 276) through the Pisgah National Forest. As you wind your way on old settlement roads past mountain peaks and cascading waterfalls, imagine how this landscape looked decades ago when modern forestry began.
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Newfound Gap Road is a 31-mile linear landscape that connects Gatlinburg, Tennessee to Cherokee, North Carolina. It forms a vital component of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s circulation system that is completely contained within the National Park’s boundaries. This roadway is often the first or primary means for visitors to acquaint themselves with the character of the National Park and its natural, recreational, and cultural resources. Travelers can stop along the roadway to take hikes and then continue on the byway to ascend along pronounced curves to view beautiful overlooks.
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Drive the Outer Banks Scenic Byway today. With the help of two ferries, visit the beaches and see the ocean from the barrier islands. Enjoy old-time village communities that haven t lost their maritime culture. Wrap yourself in local history on the Outer Banks Scenic Byway.
Explore this route →Multistate routes appear in each relevant state. Some entries describe a byway, others a selected stretch or a broader road trip; routes can overlap.