Utah ranks second for summer road trips, thanks to scenic drives

Utah finished second in WalletHub’s 2026 Best & Worst States for Summer Road Trips report, trailing Minnesota and finishing ahead of Louisiana, New York and Florida. The June 22 ranking compared all 50 states across 32 factors, and Utah rose on the strength of its scenery, outdoor recreation and safer roads.

The scorecard lined up with what road trippers actually use on the ground. Utah ranked third nationally for access to scenic byways, sixth overall in safety and eighth in activities, even as it landed 34th for costs. Deseret News highlighted Utah’s top-10 standing for least car thefts per capita and its fourth-place finish for fewest fatalities per 100 million miles driven, the kind of numbers that matter when a summer itinerary stretches from one park gate to the next. WalletHub also said nearly 72% of American adults were planning some kind of road trip this summer, with more than one-third expecting to take more than one.

That demand meets a state built for moving from one highlight to the next. Visit Utah says the state’s roads wind through the Mighty Five national parks, ski resorts, seven national forests and 46 state parks, plus more one-of-a-kind towns than most travelers can fit into a single week. The Mighty Five, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches and Canyonlands, each anchor a travel region that extends well beyond the park boundary into nearby state parks, national monuments and small communities.

Utah’s byway network gives those routes extra texture. The state’s scenic-byway materials describe 27 scenic byways and 59 backways, while Visit Utah counts 27 state and national scenic byways and describes them as destinations in their own right. Those roads are built for more than getting from A to B: they thread past trailheads, overlooks, museums, local food stops and overnight communities that make it easy to stitch together a high-variety trip without burning days on the interstate.

Utahraptor State Park sharpened that case again when it opened to the public on May 23, 2025, about 15 miles northwest of Moab. The 6,500-acre park adds a visitor center, campground and trail access, along with fossil history and World War II-era history near one of the state’s busiest adventure hubs. Utah’s jump from fourth in 2025 to second in 2026 showed the same thing from another angle: in Utah, the drive, the stops and the destination still feel like one continuous trip.