Colorado’s Million Dollar Highway: Why the San Juan Skyway Is the Most Terrifying Drive Worth Taking

There’s a moment on the Million Dollar Highway where your passenger goes quiet, your knuckles tighten on the steering wheel, and the road ahead seems to carve itself into the face of a cliff that drops hundreds of feet into nothing. I’ve driven a lot of roads in this country — the Blue Ridge, the … Read more

The Enchanted Circle: Why Northern New Mexico’s 83-Mile Loop Is the Southwest’s Best-Kept Road Trip

There’s a stretch of highway in northern New Mexico where the sky does something unfair. It starts out the regular blue you get everywhere else in America, and then somewhere around Questa — elevation 7,400 feet — it deepens into a shade of turquoise that doesn’t quite look real. I had to pull over and … Read more

Olympic National Park in August: Three Ecosystems, One Unforgettable Trip

I’ve stood in a lot of places that claim to have it all. Most of them are lying. But Olympic National Park? It might be the only spot in North America where you can walk through a temperate rainforest in the morning, stand on a glacier-carved ridge after lunch, and watch the sun melt into … Read more