Seven drives where the road is the holiday, not the transfer

Norway's Helgeland coast, Namibian gravel and a blunt verdict on Route 66, plus the insurance clause that voids Iceland's best roads.

A good driving holiday has one distinguishing feature: the finest hour of the day happens between two places rather than at either of them. That disqualifies most self-drive itineraries sold as such, which are really hotel chains linked by motorway. The seven routes below are here because the road itself is the reason to go, and because each carries a practical catch, a ferry timetable, a fuel gap, an insurance exclusion, that determines whether the trip works or unravels. Costs and rules were checked against operators and national authorities for the 2026 season.

Before the car is booked

• Norwegian municipalities may levy a 3 per cent visitor tax on overnight stays from summer 2026; cruise passengers are covered, campsites and marinas are not.
• Icelandic rental agreements almost universally exclude river crossings from every insurance tier, including the dearest.
• New Zealand charges an International Visitor Levy of NZ$100, paid with the NZeTA.
• In Namibia a 4×4 runs roughly 1,475 to 2,200 Namibian dollars a day, with park fees of about 1,750 to 3,000 across a typical route.

Norway’s Helgeland coast and the Atlantic Road

The Kystriksveien, the coastal road numbered Fv17, runs north from Steinkjer through six or seven car ferries, and the ferries are the point rather than the delay. It passes Torghatten, the mountain with a hole through it, crosses the Arctic Circle at Svartisen where a glacier arm reaches nearly to sea level, and carries a fraction of the traffic that clogs the fjord routes further south.

The Atlantic Road itself is eight kilometres and takes fifteen minutes, so it belongs in a longer loop rather than a day out. Drive it in bad weather, when the swell breaks over the Storseisundet bridge, which is the entire reason the road is famous.

Budget for the new levy. Travel Mole reports a 3 per cent charge on overnight stays that municipalities can adopt from summer 2026, applying to hotels and short-term rentals as well as cruise passengers, with Bergen, Tromso, Geirangerfjord and the Lofoten islands among the places expected to move first. Councils must show that tourism is straining public facilities and submit a spending plan for approval, so adoption will be patchy rather than national.

Namibia: gravel, distance and a second spare

Namibia is the finest self-drive country on earth and the least forgiving of casual preparation. Inside Namibia costs a fortnight for two at roughly 2,800 to 3,800 euros at the budget end and 3,800 to 6,100 in comfortable mid-range lodges, excluding international flights, which add 1,200 to 2,200 a head from Europe.

The detail that matters is the vehicle. A 4×4 costs about 1,475 to 2,200 Namibian dollars a day, fuel runs 6,000 to 9,500 across a typical 2,500 to 3,500 kilometre route, and tyre replacement, which is close to inevitable on Namibian gravel, costs 2,500 to 3,500 each. Park fees total roughly 1,750 to 3,000 across Etosha, Sossusvlei and the rest, and the shuttle from the 2WD car park into Sossusvlei is a further 250 an adult.

Three rules keep the trip intact: carry two spare wheels, keep below eighty kilometres an hour on gravel because that is where rollovers happen, and never drive after dusk, when kudu step into the road.

Iceland’s Ring Road, and the roads insurance will not cover

The Ring Road is paved and manageable in any car. The interior is neither, and the gap between the two is where holidays go wrong. Every F-road legally requires four-wheel drive, and driving one in a two-wheel-drive rental invalidates the insurance entirely, exposing the driver to liabilities that can exceed 7,000 euros.

River crossings are excluded from all insurance levels in almost every Icelandic rental agreement, including the most expensive collision-damage packages, with recovery alone starting at 200,000 to 500,000 kronur. That exclusion is the single most important sentence in the contract and it is rarely mentioned at the desk.

Opening dates vary by two to four weeks each year with the snowmelt. As a guide, F35 over Kjolur usually opens in early June, F208 north and F225 towards Landmannalaugar in mid to late June, F88 to Askja and F249 into Thorsmork between late June and July, and F26 across Sprengisandur in July. The Icelandic Road Administration publishes live conditions, and roads close overnight without notice.

Ireland’s west, driven against the flow

The Wild Atlantic Way is signposted from north to south and almost everybody drives it the other way, which is an argument for starting at Malin Head and working down. Coaches and tour convoys run clockwise around the Ring of Kerry, so the anticlockwise driver meets them head-on twice and then has the road to themselves.

The better sections are also the less booked ones. North Mayo between Ballycastle and Belmullet, the Sligo coast under Benbulben and the Beara peninsula all offer what the Ring of Kerry promises without the queue at every viewpoint. Fuel stops thin out considerably in Connemara and north Mayo, so half a tank is the point to start looking rather than a quarter.

Sardinia and Corsica on a single hire car

The one-hour ferry between Santa Teresa Gallura and Bonifacio links two islands with completely different driving. Sardinia’s Costa Paradiso and the road down to Cala Gonone are wide and fast; Corsica’s D81 along the west coast and the Col de Bavella are narrow, exposed and slow enough that fifty kilometres can absorb two hours.

The catch is contractual rather than practical. Rental agreements frequently prohibit taking a car between the two islands, or between Italy and France generally, and the cross-border permission has to be obtained in writing before collection. Discovering the restriction at the ferry ramp is a common and expensive way to lose a day.

New Zealand’s South Island, and the levy attached to it

Immigration New Zealand charges an International Visitor Levy of NZ$100, paid alongside the NZeTA, with exemptions for Australian passport holders and citizens of several Pacific states. It is a fixed cost of arrival rather than a driving cost, but it belongs in the budget for a trip whose whole appeal is the road.

The route worth building around is not the obvious one. Rather than the Queenstown circuit, run the Haast Pass to the west coast glaciers, then Arthur’s Pass, then south into the Catlins, which almost nobody drives and which has the sea lions and the weather. February to April gives settled conditions and long evenings after the domestic school holidays have finished.

Route 66, honestly

Route 66 is the most requested driving holiday and the least satisfying as usually sold. Long stretches were decommissioned and either severed or paralleled so closely by interstate that the experience is a motorway with occasional signposted detours. A fortnight from Chicago to Los Angeles is largely spent on I-44 and I-40.

The surviving sections that justify the effort are concentrated in Arizona and New Mexico: Seligman to Kingman, the run past the Painted Desert, and the older alignment through Santa Fe. Two days there deliver most of what the whole route promises.

Anyone drawn to American road-tripping for the driving rather than the mythology should look at Utah’s State Route 12 between Torrey and Bryce, or US 550 through the San Juan mountains in Colorado. Both are shorter, better roads with far more to see from the windscreen.

Sources: Norway unveils a 3% tax on tourists from summer 2026, Travel Mole · Namibia self-drive costs for 2026, Inside Namibia · Iceland F-roads guide, GoIceTravel · Road conditions, Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration · Paying the International Visitor Levy, Immigration New Zealand