Regions

Gulf Coast road trips

Shrimp boats, live oaks, beach kitsch and five flags of empire — the Old Spanish Trail's whole Southern act, St. Augustine's mile zero to the Sabine River. US 90 and US 98 do everything I-10 can't.

The Gulf Coast has 10 back-roads routes, about 2,025 miles and 108 curated stops, and 14 ready-made itineraries use them.

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Routes in the Gulf Coast

• US 90: The Creole Coast
  the Old Spanish Trail's middle act
  New Orleans → Pensacola · ~270 mi · 2–3 days · skips I-10
• The Forgotten Coast
  US 98 & Scenic 30A to the Big Bend
  Pensacola → St. Marks · ~280 mi · 2–3 days · skips I-10
• Bayou Teche & the Cajun Prairie
  Old US 90 and the back levees of Acadiana
  New Orleans → Eunice · ~230 mi · 2–3 days · skips I-10 & the Basin bridge
• River Road & the Felicianas
  The Mississippi's levee roads to Natchez
  New Orleans → Natchez · ~200 mi · 1–2 days · skips I-10
• US 90: The Florida Backbone
  Old Spanish Trail — Mile Zero to Pensacola
  St. Augustine → Pensacola · ~400 mi · 2–3 days · skips I-10
• US 90: Rice & Rails
  Old Spanish Trail — Lafayette to the Sabine
  Lafayette → Orange, TX · ~130 mi · 1 day · skips I-10
• LA 1: End of the Road
  down the longest street in the world
  Donaldsonville → Grand Isle · ~110 mi · 1–2 days · skips US 90 four-lane
• Cane River & El Camino Real
  the royal road's Louisiana act
  Natchez → Toledo Bend · ~180 mi · 2 days · skips I-49
• Poverty Point & the Delta Parishes
  the oldest thing on the map
  Vidalia → Lake Providence · ~130 mi · 1–2 days · skips I-20
• Alabama's Coastal Connection
  Dauphin Island to Perdido Key by the Mobile Bay ferry
  Dauphin Island → Pensacola · ~95 mi · 1–2 days · skips I-10

Ready-made itineraries in the Gulf Coast

• Forgotten Coast Oyster Run
  3 days · ~250 mi · from Pensacola
  Dune lakes, Truman Show streets, a phone-booth police station and the springs where Hollywood kept its monsters — Old Florida in one weekend.
• The Natchez Trace, End to End
  5 days · ~720 mi · from New Orleans
  Up the Mississippi's levee roads to Natchez, then all 444 billboard-free miles of the old Trace to Nashville — ten thousand years of footpath at a…
• The Gulf Crawl
  6 days · ~480 mi · from New Orleans
  New Orleans to the Big Bend at porch speed — the whole northern Gulf without one mile of I-10.
• The Old Spanish Trail: Full US 90
  8 days · ~1000 mi · from St. Augustine
  The 1920s sea-to-sea auto trail's entire Southern act, end to end: from the Zero Milestone in America's oldest city to the Sabine River crossing…
• Boudin, Cracklins & Plate Lunches
  2 days · ~140 mi · from Lafayette, LA
  Acadiana's gas-station gastronomy, done as a discipline: boudin links eaten off the casing in parking lots, cracklins by the wax-paper bag, and the…
• Beyond the Sabine: El Camino to the Alamo
  7 days · ~1050 mi · from Lafayette, LA
  Where the atlas crosses into Texas: boudin and rice prairies to the Sabine, old US 90 to the Alamo, and the King's Highway — El Camino Real — back…
• Houston to New Orleans the Old US 90 Way
  3 days · ~430 mi · from Houston
  Leave I-10 at the Sabine and take the Old Spanish Trail through rice country and Acadiana: boudin at gas stations, a Saturday accordion jam…
• Gulf Shores & the Forts
  2 days · ~100 mi · from Mobile
  Both forts, the ferry and all 32 miles of Alabama beach in a weekend, with the Flora-Bama for the finale.

Also touches the Gulf Coast: The Red Dirt Roadhouse Run · The Deep South Grand Circle · The Whole Hog · The Long Way to the Opry · Memphis to New Orleans on US 61 · The Great River Road, Southern Act

States: Louisiana · Florida · Mississippi · Alabama · Texas. Browse the other regions: Deep South · Upper South · Atlantic Coast · Florida Peninsula · Ozarks, Ouachitas & the Bootheel · Beyond the Sabine.