America’s Greatest Motorcycle Routes
From the Pacific Coast Highway to Route 66, the USA boasts some of the most iconic and downright enjoyable road trips on Earth. James Oxley selects eight of the best to help you get your kicks in the USA during 2026…
America does scale differently to us Brits. Distances are bigger, landscapes are vaster, and the road network seems designed for the simple act of riding until you reach an ocean, border, or the edge of the map. For many of us, that sense of space is part of the appeal. You can cross deserts, traverse mountain ranges, and roll through countless small towns that haven’t changed in decades, and still have another thousand miles ahead of you. It’s no surprise many people view it as the spiritual home of the road trip.
And while we’re not blind to the fact America has been in the news a lot lately, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate what we love about riding in the USA. There are the awe inspiring and diverse landscapes, the brilliant biking roads, the massive food portions, and the genuine warmth and hospitality we’ve always received from local people whenever we’ve visited on two wheels.
The USA’s influence over popular culture, both now and in the past, means riding in the States can sometimes feel like being in your own film. But the best road trips aren’t about chasing movie locations or ticking off cliches. Instead, they’re about immersion. Long days in the saddle, a diner stop in the middle of nowhere, and the steady realisation that the country is so vast it would take a lifetime or more to fully explore.
So, because you probably don’t have a lifetime to spare, we’ve carefully selected some of the greatest rides America has to offer to help inspire your own Stateside adventure. From the music soaked miles of the Blues Highway to the wilderness of Alaska, and the remote wilds of the Continental Divide, these are all amazing bike journeys that will drop you right into the heart of America.
Some of these routes are perfect as quick trips, the sort of ride you could build a holiday around with a hired bike and a week off work. Others are something bigger, like taking on a coast-to-coast journey that might take a month or two but will stay with you for life.
What links them all is variety. America offers every kind of riding, from easy cruising to genuine backcountry challenge, and it rewards those who take their time. Pick a route, point the bike towards the horizon, and let the miles do what they do best.
1. ROUTE 66
ESTIMATED TIME TO RIDE: 2 to 3 weeks (Eaglerider offers a 16-day tour)
DISTANCE: 2,210 miles
HOW DO I GET INVOLVED: www.bit.ly/ABR66
Few roads capture the imagination like Route 66. The name itself rolls off the tongue as easily as a cruiser gliding down a stretch of desert tarmac. As America’s first completely paved highway, it’s steeped in history, from acting as a lifeline for those fleeing the Dust Bowl in the prairies to symbolising a post-war boom in America’s obsession with the car.
Route 66 hasn’t been a designated highway for more than 40 years, but it lives as an open invitation to discover the essence of America. And with 2026 marking 100 years since the highway was established, there’s no better year to explore it.
The route begins in the city of Chicago, crosses the Mississippi at St Louis, and enters the heart of Americana. You’ll roll through the Ozarks, stopping at classic roadside diners and quirky attractions as the road and landscape opens up. The city of Tulsa, famed for its Art Deco architecture, will be hosting a special centennial Route 66 event, including music, parades, and exhibitions, so you can immerse yourself in American road trip culture before heading west into cowboy country.
Stop at a Texan steakhouse in Amarillo and follow the cattle trails into New Mexico where sprawling desert, red mesas and bluffs, characterful towns, and endless blue skies await. The final stretch across Arizona and into California culminates with a stunning ride over the Angeles Crest Highway (which rises to more than 2,300m) and finishes by Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, with the Pacific Ocean lapping at the famous sands.
Riding Route 66 is more than an epic bike ride, it’s also a cultural experience. If you’d like to become part of the history of the Mother Road, tour company EagleRider is running a oneoff Route 66 Centennial Tour over 16 unforgettable days this summer. It includes a series of special stops and highlights that won’t be repeated on future EagleRider tours, including the Tulsa Road Fest celebration. For your ride, you can choose from the latest adventure and touring bikes, including BMW and Harley-Davidsons. Multilingual tour guides and a support van are also included on this once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
2. PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY
DISTANCE: 1,700 miles
ESTIMATED TIME TO RIDE: 1 to 2 weeks (Orange & Black Offers a 12-day tour)
HOW DO I GET INVOLVED: www.bit.ly/ABRpch
Riding the Pacific Coast Highway is like taking a two-week lesson in geography, but without the boredom. As you trace the western seaboard of the United States, you’ll see every kind of landscape and coastline imaginable. Lush temperate rainforests, pine-clad mountains, soaring cliffs and sprawling valleys make up the scenery ahead, while the Pacific crashes to your right.
Leaving Seattle, you’ll explore the Olympic Peninsula in the northwest on a stunning ride through vast, misty forests. Once you reach the coast, which in this corner of the country is characterised by dramatic rocky beaches and coves, you’ll wind your way south into Oregon. There are plenty of picturesque small towns and sweeping bends along this stretch. Then, entering California, you’ll cut inland and be treated to the sight of giant redwoods looming overhead along the Avenue of the Giants.
Back beside the ocean, the wild landscape of northern California slowly softens as you ride south. After passing sequoias and vineyards, you’ll cross the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco, which is well worth spending a day or two exploring. Then, once you hit the road again, it is hit after hit: the artsy coastal city of Monterey, the rugged coastline and canyons of Big Sur, the iconic Bixby Bridge, and wildlife including seals, dolphins, and even whales.
As you enter southern California, you’ll cruise past surf beaches and towns such as Santa Barbara and Malibu before arriving in LA, which is actually be an enjoyable place to ride despite the traffic. The Pacific Coast Highway officially ends just south of the city at Dana Point, where one of the world’s great motorcycle journeys draws to a close. It has been epic.
To ride the Pacific Coast Highway, get in touch with the team at tour operator Orange & Black, whose knowledge of the route is unrivalled. Its 12-day, 1,700-mile guided tour takes you on the ultimate PCH journey. The tour includes an experienced guide, a current-model Harley-Davidson, fuel, a spare bike, a support van, accommodation, and much more. Simply turn up and enjoy the ride of a lifetime.
3. The Blues Highway
ESTIMATED TIME TO RIDE: 1 to 2 weeks
DISTANCE: 1,400 miles
Known as the Blues Highway, Route 61 follows the course of the mighty Mississippi River from the delta city of New Orleans in the south, to just outside Minneapolis on the north. It’s a journey into the music that lives in the soul of America, from the aching sounds of the blues, the swing of jazz, and the cutting-edge sounds of Sun Records which was a driving force in bringing blues music to a wider audience through the likes of Elvis Presley. Not only that, but Route 61 gives you the chance to explore the sheer diversity of people and landscapes of the States by following the largest river in North America.
You can ride it in either direction but, starting in the south you’ll begin by spending time exploring New Orleans, with its vibrant nightlife, historic architecture, and blend of French, Spanish, and Creole cultures, and then ride out into the bayou and head north, where you can pick up scenic roads leading into the Deep South. You can stop at Vicksburg, where you can discover Civil War history, and further on you can visit the famous crossroads where Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the Devil to master the blues.
Memphis lies ahead, home to the iconic Beale Street and the Memphis Blues, along with Sun Studio, Stax Records, Graceland, and Memphis barbecue. It’s also an important centre for Civil Rights. It’s worth spending at least a day exploring the city before rejoining the road and following the Mississippi north.
St Louis, another city renowned for its musical heritage, is worth exploring before swapping corn fields for forested hills and winding roads as you make your way through Iowa and into Wisconsin. You can take a quick detour to Anamosa to visit the National Motorcycle Museum.
Route 61 officially finishes rather anticlimactically on the outskirts of Minneapolis at a town called Wyoming where it meets Interstate 35, which is why many people end their journey further south. But for you completionists, there is a vibrant local blues scene in downtown Minneapolis waiting to be explored. This is a ride with a soundtrack built in.
4. DALTON HIGHWAY
ESTIMATED TIME TO RIDE: a week up and back
DISTANCE: 414 miles
The Dalton Highway is Alaska personified: rugged, wild, and remote. Constructed as a service road for the Trans Alaska Pipeline System in 1974, transporting crude oil from the fields in the very north of the state to the ice-free port of Valdez in the south, it stretches for 414 miles across Alaskan backcountry.
There’s a mystique and a dangerous glint to it, and there’s a reason it features so often in the TV shows Ice Road Truckers and World’s Most Dangerous Roads. It also serves as the northern end of the continent-spanning Pan American Highway, so riding to the road’s terminus at Prudhoe Bay has become a rite of passage for adventure bikers completing one of the world’s greatest rides.
The Dalton begins at the junction with the Elliott Highway near the city of Fairbanks, before plunging into the wilderness. Pavement soon turns to gravel, and unpredictable road conditions are the norm. You never know if you’re going to get corrugations, washed out sections, clay slicks, or cavernous potholes. Or you might get lucky and roll on freshly graded dry gravel the whole way north (but probably not). Don’t prepare for that, though. You’ll want 80/20 tyres at the very least, and the skill to ride in unpredictable gravel.
The other thing you can’t prepare for are the animals. You’ll likely see moose, grizzlies, and caribou hunkering on the shoulder or running across the road. Then there are the truckers driving 18-wheelers and make no mistake, they own the road, so keep your distance and pull over to let them pass if you need. The last thing you need is a truck pelting rocks the size of golf balls at you.
Finally, you’ll need plenty of fuel since there is a 240-mile gap between the towns of Coldfoot and Deadhorse without petrol stations, or in fact any kind of service. The reward for navigating these challenges? One of the world’s most beautiful landscapes that, for the most part, you’ll have all to yourself. Endless mountain ranges, sprawling taiga forests, lonely glacial river valleys, and a finale at the edge of the Arctic Ocean.
5. FLORIDA KEYS OVERSEAS HIGHWAY
ESTIMATED TIME TO RIDE: You could do it in a day but aim for three
DISTANCE: 106.5 miles
This is one for the pontists, of which ABR Editor James counts himself among their ranks. Defined as someone with an interest in bridges, being a pontist speaks to that feeling of satisfaction when you see a well-engineered bridge spanning a canyon, river, or in this case, ocean, and the appreciation for human ingenuity and desire to overcome obstacles. Even if you’re not a hardcore pontist, who doesn’t appreciate the feeling of riding over an epic bridge with a sparkling blue sea beneath you?
That’s what the Overseas Highway is all about. Connecting the mainland to the Florida Keys, the road is a series of bridges that stitch together the coral islands of the archipelago, allowing you to ride far into the Gulf of Mexico and within 100 miles of Cuba. The ride begins by leaving the urban sprawl of Miami behind as you head across to Key Largo, known for its reef diving and fishing. You’ll then ride over dozens of bridges, including the famous Seven Mile Bridge, while stopping in marinas and island towns packed with seafood restaurants, grills, and Cuban bars. The Keys are laid-back kinds of places where you want to slow down and take it easy, enjoying the palm-lined roads and glittering ocean views.
The highway ends in Key West, the southernmost part of the contiguous United States. Once home to writers like Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, and with an anarchic streak that saw it declare independence from the US in the ‘80s as the self-proclaimed Conch Republic, Key West is a great place to stay for a day, relax, and enjoy some rum.
You’ll then get to turn around and ride back along the highway, approaching mainland Florida and the Everglades from a different perspective. If you’re after a long trip, it’s easy to combine this with a journey around Florida, exploring sights like Daytona, Cape Canaveral, and Miami itself. However long you have, the secret here is not to rush. The Florida Keys are for savouring so relax and breathe in that ocean air.
6. USA COAST TO COAST
DISTANCE: at least 3,700 miles
ESTIMATED TIME TO RIDE: 2 weeks minimum, you’ll have more fun with 4 weeks
An American coast-to-coast road trip is a classic for a reason: you start at one end, point your wheels the other way, and head west, or east, until you can’t ride any further. The bit in between is up to you, and it’s that sense of freedom and discovery in the middle that’s most exciting. We reckon a coast-to-coast trip should be a bit more Easyrider rather than rigidly following a GPX file on a SatNav, but there are definitely a few places and roads that are a must for any biker making the journey.
Starting from the east coast, Norfolk, Virginia is a good place to begin if you’re shipping your own bike from the UK. From here, the Great Smoky Mountains offer some incredible riding, with legendary roads like the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Tail of the Dragon en route. While you’re in the area, you can drop into places like bourbon distilleries, Civil War battlefields, and country music centres for that authentic taste of Appalachia and the South.
There’s no getting around the fact that the Midwest states are generally flat and filled with corn, but you can head through the Ozarks for some twisty roads and feast on Texan barbecue before riding up into Colorado, home to biking highlights like the scenic Million Dollar Highway and the Pikes Peak hill climb.
You’ll also find Wile E. Coyote-style flat-topped hills, or mesas, as you head through the desert into Utah, which has otherworldly landscapes like Bryce Canyon and Arches National Park to explore. There are plenty of trail riding opportunities if that’s your bag. You can then ride down the Las Vegas Strip and explore nearby sights like the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon.
The hits keep on coming as you ride through Death Valley and across the Sierra Nevada mountains in Yosemite National Park, before finally reaching the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco, with the chance to pick up some of the Pacific Coast Highway along the way. If you want the full American road trip experience, it’s hard to beat riding from coast to coast.
7. THE LONELIEST ROAD IN AMERICA
DISTANCE: 410 miles across Nevada
ESTIMATED TIME TO RIDE: 2 days
If you’ve ever looked at a map of America and wondered what it’s like in the empty spaces between the cities, Route 50 is it. In fact, the section stretching across Nevada earned the nickname The Loneliest Road in America after a dismissive magazine article in the ‘80s, but Nevada took it as a compliment. Ride it and you’ll understand why. It’s all about space. Proper space. The kind we don’t have in Britain, and the kind I miss from my native Australia.
The famous Nevada section of Route 50 runs just over 400 miles from Lake Tahoe to the Utah border near the small town of Baker. What lies between is a repeating pattern of wide valleys and mountain roads, known as Basin and Range country. You crest a pass, see the next 20 miles ahead, and settle into a rhythm. Traffic is scarce and services are far apart. It’s remote riding at its most liberating.
Heading east, Fallon is the last sizeable town. After that, places like Austin, Eureka, and Ely feel more like outposts. Old mining towns with a café, a bar, and a story or two. Fill up with petrol whenever you see it and carry water. Oh, and don’t rely on a mobile phone signal. This is remote by European standards, even if the tarmac is good.
The riding itself isn’t difficult, but the scale is the biggest challenge. Distances stretch, weather moves in quickly, and you become more aware of your bike, your range anxiety, and the fact that help is a long way off if you were to break down. It’s pure adventure of the paved variety.
If 410 miles sounds modest, remember that this is only the Nevada section. Route 50 runs coast to coast for more than 3,000 miles, from California to the Atlantic. You could ride the loneliest section as a standalone trip or make it the centrepiece of a far bigger American crossing. Either way, it’s a reminder that sometimes the best roads are the ones most people avoid.
8. CONTINENTAL DIVIDE TRAIL
DISTANCE: around 2,500 miles
ESTIMATED TIME TO RIDE: 2 weeks
The Rocky Mountains form part of the continent-spanning American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges that stretch from Alaska to the bottom of Argentina. No one has created a motorcycle route that spans the entire backbone of this system yet, but you can ride the length of the Rockies in the US on the Continental Divide Trail. If you’re into dirt roads, forestry tracks, and winding mountain trails, this is the one for you.
There’s no right or wrong direction to travel in. You may choose to travel north if you’d prefer the climax of the trip to be the glacial valleys of Montana, or you might want to ride south into the vast, red expanse of the New Mexican desert. Either way, you’ll have the same glorious experience in between.
From the south, New Mexico offers a mix of sandy tracks and gravel roads across scrubland and cowboy bluffs before the terrain becomes more mountainous, with rocky trails through forests taking you into Colorado. You’ll find slightly easier gravel access roads through the hills here, with lush green valleys, impressive rock formations, and winding roads under huge skies. You can also find thermal springs in the hills to relax after a long day in the saddle, and plenty of bike-friendly towns to visit.
Next, Wyoming opens up into plains dotted by old mining sites and tumble-down shacks, before the Tetons appear, the jagged peaks looking like the American equivalent of the Dolomites. There’s some superb riding here as the trail enters the mountains again, and you can stop over in Yellowstone National Park to visit the world-famous geysers and thermal pools. Just watch out for bison.
As you cross Wyoming and enter Idaho and then Montana, you’ll ride past cowboys driving cattle and find a few challenging sections of trail as you make your way into the final stretch of mountains and arrive at the end of the line by the Canadian border. You’ll be best served by a dual-sport bike, and you’ll want to be good at riding off-road and self-sufficient with roadside repairs if needed, in what is a truly epic backcountry adventure.
Exploring the USA
So, there you have it, a selection of some of the greatest road trips you can take in the USA on two wheels. Whether you’ve got a few days to spare or you’re planning on spending months on the road, there’s an American road trip waiting to be ridden.
