When moving to a new place, or just starting your foray into driving for enjoyment, I bet you’ll Google “best driving roads in [insert your city here].”

You’ll find some decent roads, for sure. People have discovered some incredible mountain and coast roads that delve deep into rural regions, providing plenty of joy, and posted about them on the internet.

There’s an inherent problem with publicized “best driving roads.” They’re publicly known.

What does that mean? More traffic. More sightseers. And if you like your driving “spirited” then you’ll also care that there are likely more police.

So, if you want to truly find the road less traveled and enjoy real road freedom, what can you do?

In my time exploring the driving roads of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest, and Southern California, I’ve gone with a tried-and-true method that reveals new, yet-to-be-discovered driving roads with no traffic, undisturbed surfaces, and beautiful scenery. This method combines good old fashioned “looking around at your surroundings” with technology…

Your maps app.

Whether you use Google Maps, Apple Maps, or something else, I bet that if you put yourself close to some of the well known best driving roads in the country, you can find a road less traveled within 10 miles.

Zoom in and look around. Are there gaps in the map where there doesn’t look to be a road? Are there landmarks pinpointed on the map with no visible roads? How about offshoots of the popular road that go nowhere? Most popular driving roads are highways – find the surface streets that look exactly the same.

When you find these roads, enjoy them. Tell your friends, but don’t post it on the forums, or social media…just do what we’re supposed to do with our cars – drive them and have a damn great time doing it.