Three Great Summer Road Trips

Few things are quite as American as the summertime road trip. But when it’s not well-planned out, the hours spent behind the wheel can result in heavy-lidded travelers, who reach their destinations in a haze and don’t remember the journey. With a well-laid out plan, however, road trippers can sit back and appreciate the dusty stretches of asphalt and lapis lazuli dome of sky as it reaches an orange horizon in every direction. Here are three of our favorite ways to experience the Great American Road Trip:

American Southwest

, land art, spa time among the red rocks of Sedona.

Begin in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an adobe wonderland that drew Bob Dylan and Cormac McCarthy, and relax at the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi before setting off. Follow the path of the Anasazi through to the Cliff Palace of Mesa Verde and see the power of the sky and land at the Petrified Forest. End your voyage in the red rock embrace of Mii amo and its spa, where the dust melts off your skin.

California

Stops at farms, vineyards and some of the country's best restaurants.

The drive from Napa to Los Angeles offers glimpses of California's diversity. The route along the Pacific Coast Highway, up along the coastline, includes long and gorgeous stretches of lonesome road punctuated by some of the best rest stops in the world.

In Santa Barbara, 90 minutes north of L.A., the Bacara Resort and Spa (meritagecollection.com/bacararesort) provides a last glimpse of the sunshine opulence of Southern California before the misty ether of the central coast and Big Sur. There, the Post Ranch Inn is a hidden hilltop property that inspired a generation of Beat poets to create their magna opera. And when you reach Napa and Sonoma, you’ll reap the benefits of such fertile soil. The Bardessono (www.bardessono.com) embodies the culturally inquisitive and ecologically aware personality of the Bay Area, and a bottle of local wine at its restaurant the Lucy is the perfect cap to a revitalizing road trip.

Utah

, spectacular hiking.

Utah, the understated hinterland of the west, makes for a road trip that takes on the epic scope afforded to the frontiersman of over a century ago. It’s here that you can drive with the top down on a warm summer night, listening to the wind carry coyote howls over the empty desert. Zion, Arches, Moab, Goblin Valley and Bryce Canyon national parks dot the state, while Monument Valley rears out of the southeast into your vision like a movie come to life. And while the distances between these sites can be great, stops in oases like the Amangiri will make the journey as pampering as it is adventurous.