Scenic drives in the Great Lakes
8 curated roads, 7 paved and 1 gravel, across IL, MI, MN, OH and WI. Every road here was researched and verified rather than pulled off a listicle, and each is paired with the town worth basing yourself in.
- Great River Road & the Stagecoach Trail
- Highway 42 — the Door Peninsula
- M-119 — the Tunnel of Trees
- M-22 & Sleeping Bear
- North Shore Scenic Drive (Hwy 61)
- OH-374 through the Hocking Hills
- Red Arrow Highway
- Blackjack Rd & the Jo Daviess gravel
The turn-by-turn routes are members-only. Each of these roads has a verified Google Maps route that actually draws the road — the part that took the work, and the part interactive maps usually get wrong. Those live in the full Drives Atlas, which opens with an email. No account, no password.
Driving one of these?
Turn on “Avoid highways” in your maps app first. Otherwise you get rerouted onto the interstate and skip the entire point of the road.