Glacier Highway
NEW ZEALAND
Even in a land that provided scenery for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, New Zealand’s South Island is a road-trip destination writ large. Among its most gobsmacking routes is the Glacier Highway—a.k.a. the Ice Run—which includes a ceaselessly twisting 400-km-long section that takes in the most accessible and lowest-lying glaciers on the planet. Starting at the historic gold-rush town of Hokitika on the west coast, the road travels south along a windswept shoreline before cutting inland through vast tracts of farmland tinted with lavender.

It is there that drivers encounter New Zealand’s colossal Southern Alps, their peaks dusted with snow. Turns of every gradient and camber pile onto one another as the road weaves into Westland National Park, home to more than 60 glaciers. It then meanders into Mount Aspiring National Park and crosses the Haast Pass before climaxing at the Neck—a land saddle dividing Lakes Hawea and Wanaka.

“There are not many roads where you can see beaches in the morning, rainforests at midday and glaciers in the afternoon,” says Mike Rose of Paradise Motorcycle Tours NZ. “It’s got to be the most epic road trip in the world.”