The Best Time to Take a Road Trip: A Month-by-Month Guide to Where to Go
By Dillon14 min read
You're standing in the kitchen with a wall calendar in one hand and a pencil in the other. Two weeks off, maybe three. The pencil hovers over June, slides to September, and ends up behind your ear. Everyone you've asked has an answer, and no two answers agree.
The best time to take a road trip depends on where the road goes, and a calendar can answer that if you count the right things. Our city guides rate the best months for 757 cities across the US and Canada. We tallied them month by month, and a few results surprised us.
Below you'll find the numbers, a table you can sort, and a tab for every month with cities to stop in, a photo of each, and a premade route to start from. Pick a month, pick a road, and the pencil can go back behind your ear.
- 625cities rated best in September, the most of any month
- 60cities rated best in December, the fewest
- 50%of all best-month ratings land in April, May, September or October (2,132 of 4,265)
- 27%of cities list no June, July or August at all
How did we build this month-by-month guide? #
Every city guide on Route By Design carries a list of best months, which our guides rate by weather. We counted them: 757 cities, 4,265 month ratings in all, an average of 5.6 months per city. Then we picked five or six cities for each month. A pick had to list that month, it had to have a photo we could show you, and each month's set had to spread across regions and, where the data allowed, both countries. Each month also gets one premade route whose season includes it.
The limits are real. These ratings are ours, not a government or tourism dataset, and they say nothing about prices or crowds, so this post doesn't either. November and December have short lists, so their picks are thinner. Nobody paid to be included.
| January | 89 | 11.8 | Telluride | Kootenay ski towns in winter | 39 of the 89 are ski towns |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February | 125 | 16.5 | Taos | New Mexico snow route | 39 ski towns, 18 desert towns |
| March | 232 | 30.6 | Sedona | Poppies and orchard blossoms in spring | Desert (30) passes ski (22) |
| April | 350 | 46.2 | Charleston | Cherry blossoms to the Blue Ridge | No ski towns, 39 desert towns |
| May | 598 | 79.0 | Victoria | Vancouver Island, Victoria to Tofino | Canada jumps from 13 cities to 118 |
| June | 551 | 72.8 | Vancouver | Calgary to Vancouver across the Rockies | Mountain towns rise from 72 to 112 |
| July | 445 | 58.8 | Tadoussac | Glacier to Yellowstone | All 183 Canadian cities |
| August | 428 | 56.5 | Tobermory | Georgian Bay and Lake Huron loop | 101 lake towns |
| September | 625 | 82.6 | Durango | San Juan fall colors | The peak, in 111 of 148 routes |
| October | 559 | 73.8 | Asheville | Blue Ridge Parkway in fall | Music cities top out at 42 |
| November | 203 | 26.8 | Memphis | Nashville to New Orleans music trail | One Canadian city, Churchill |
| December | 60 | 7.9 | Key West | Vermont ski villages in winter | 14 beach towns lead a short list |
Which month are you eyeing? Each season below has a tab for every month.
