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The Prettiest Places to Explore by Car
Oct 15, 20261 min read
The prettiest places to explore by car span coast, desert, and mountains. In Los Angeles, it's the Pacific coast, Mulholland's ridgelines, and the canyons. Near Las Vegas, it's red-rock deserts like Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire. In San Diego, it's dramatic ocean cliffs and the Silver Strand. Each region offers a completely different kind of beauty — and the best way to experience all of them is on the open road.
The best views come with a drive
Some of the most beautiful places on earth aren't a single destination — they're a drive. The road unfolds the scenery, reveals a view around every bend, and lets you experience a landscape rather than just stand in it. That's why the prettiest places to explore are so often defined by their roads: the coastal highway, the desert loop, the mountain pass. This guide rounds up the most beautiful regions to explore by car, with links to detailed routes for each. The common thread: every one is better with the top down and a great car under you.
The prettiest regions to explore by car
Where to point the car for the best scenery:
- Los Angeles — Pacific coast cliffs, Mulholland's city-and-valley ridgelines, and the Malibu canyons. See our scenic drives in Los Angeles.
- Las Vegas — red-rock deserts and otherworldly landscapes minutes from the Strip. See our scenic drives in Las Vegas.
- San Diego — dramatic ocean cliffs, the Silver Strand, and coastal highways. See our scenic roads in San Diego .
- The coast — classic Pacific coastal routes, where the ocean fills the windshield for miles.
- The desert — red rock, dunes, and vast open skies, dramatic in the golden light of dawn and dusk.
- The mountains — switchbacks, pine forest, and cool air, a world away from the city below.
Coast, desert, mountain — each a different kind of beautiful.
Coast, desert, or mountains?
The beauty of exploring by car is that you can choose your scenery — and often sample several in a single region. Craving the ocean? The California coast, from LA's Pacific Coast Highway to San Diego's clifftop roads, is hard to beat. Drawn to dramatic, otherworldly landscapes? The deserts around Las Vegas glow red and gold like nowhere else. Want to escape the heat? The mountains near each city offer switchbacks, forest, and cool air. Official resources like Visit California and the National Park Service are great for planning any of them.
The detour that becomes the trip
Seasoned road-trippers will tell you the same thing: the best moments are rarely the ones you planned. It's the unmarked overlook you pull into on a whim, the stretch of empty coast road at golden hour, the desert that turns impossibly red as the sun drops. When you're exploring by car, beauty finds you — you just have to be out there, moving, ready to stop. The destinations get the postcards, but the drives between them are where the real memories live. That's the quiet magic of exploring a beautiful place on four wheels instead of from a single viewpoint.
The car makes the place
Here's the thing every driving enthusiast knows: a beautiful place is even better when the car is part of the experience. The same coastal road is a different thing entirely in a convertible with the engine singing; the same desert loop is unforgettable in something exotic. The scenery is free and open to everyone — but the car is what turns exploring into an occasion. In the prettiest places, the right car doesn't compete with the view; it completes it.
Explore the prettiest places in style
Wherever you're exploring, the car can make the memory. FYV are exotic car rental experts delivering exotic and luxury cars across our service cities, so you can explore the coast, desert, or mountains in something special. Browse our location pages to plan your drive.
Author Bio:
Matching world-class driving roads to world-class supercars is exactly what our team specializes in. I am George Kazanjian, CEO of FYV Exotic Car Rentals—a premier luxury driving destination within the Rent FYV network founded by Sean Cohen. Because we dispatch vehicles across Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas every single day, I wrote this regional hub guide to help you look past the standard tourist traps and find the specific coastal cliffs and desert canyons where these machines actually belong. My goal is to ensure you know exactly where to point the steering wheel, so you can pair your exotic rental with the most breathtaking, scroll-stopping backdrops the American Southwest has to offer.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the scenery you love. The California coast (LA to San Diego) offers ocean cliffs and highways; the deserts around Las Vegas offer dramatic red rock; and the mountains near each city offer forest and switchbacks. Each is spectacular from behind the wheel.
The California coast is the classic choice — Los Angeles's Pacific Coast Highway and San Diego's clifftop roads like Sunset Cliffs deliver stunning ocean scenery. See our city scenic-drive guides for detailed routes in each.
The areas around Las Vegas are among the best — Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire offer dramatic red-rock scenery minutes from the Strip. The desert is especially beautiful in the golden light of early morning and late afternoon.
Each region has mountain options — the San Gabriels near LA (Angeles Crest), the Spring Mountains near Las Vegas (Mount Charleston), and the Laguna Mountains near San Diego (Sunrise Highway). All offer cooler air and sweeping views.
Golden hour — near sunrise and sunset — gives the most beautiful light, especially on the coast and in the desert. Spring and fall are ideal in most regions; check seasonal conditions for mountain and desert routes. Weekdays are quieter on popular roads.
No, but a great car transforms the experience. Many travelers rent an exotic or luxury car — especially a convertible — to make a scenic drive the highlight of their trip. The scenery is free; the car elevates it.
Yes — Southern California and the Southwest make it easy to combine coast, desert, and mountains in a single trip. With a car, you can go from the LA coast to the Las Vegas desert to San Diego's cliffs, each a different kind of beauty.
All three are rewarding, but the California coast (LA and San Diego) offers the most accessible, iconic scenery, while Las Vegas pairs its desert beauty with world-famous entertainment. Choose by whether you want coast, desert, or a mix.
Yes — the scenic drives in each region are paved, well-maintained roads ideal for a luxury or exotic car. (Stick to paved routes; off-road and backcountry areas require proper vehicles.) A convertible is especially rewarding for coastal and desert drives.
Yes. FYV delivers exotic and luxury cars across its service cities, so you can explore the coast, desert, or mountains in something special — turning a beautiful place into an unforgettable drive.