On The Road Again
A road trip does something a flight cannot. The distance is felt rather than skipped. You arrive at your destination knowing exactly what sits between the start and the end—the shifting landscape, the unpredictable weather, and the unplanned stops that often become the highlight of the journey. These five routes span four continents. They cover everything from sub-zero Arctic ice roads to the humidity of Costa Rican cloud forests. Each one is documented in full on NAO. Each one is worth the drive.
We Road Tripped From Rome To Naples: And It Was Spectacular
Rome to Naples: Four Days
The Italy route starts in the chaos of Rome and runs south through sun-bleached coastal roads and ruins that have stood for millennia. In the peak of summer, 43-degree heat turns every stop into a strategic exercise in shade management. We picked up a rental car in Rome—a necessity if you want the flexibility to pull over whenever the Tyrrhenian coast reveals a hidden cove. The destination was Terracina, the homeland of the Francesco family, where the salt air and the history are equally thick.
Most travelers rush past Herculaneum on their way to the crowded streets of Pompeii. That is a tactical error. While Pompeii was famously buried in ash, Herculaneum was entombed in a flow of volcanic mud. This difference in material changed the preservation entirely. It sealed the buildings up to their second stories, protecting organic materials that vanished elsewhere. Two thousand years later, you can walk past intact floors, intricate mosaics, and painted walls that remain in better condition than most modern apartment renovations.
The journey ends in Naples, the city that invented pizza. Neapolitan pizza is a protected art form: a thin base, high-heat wood firing, and fresh mozzarella di bufala. The tomatoes here taste like the volcanic earth they grew in. Once you eat a Margherita in a crowded Naples backalley, your relationship with the dish changes permanently. We finished the trip near Sorrento, white-knuckling a rental car through narrow mountain passes. The views over the Amalfi Coast at sunset are the kind of reward that makes the traffic and the heat worth the struggle.
SCOTLAND – Islay Whisky, Rosslyn Chapel & Braveheart Highlands
Scotland Road Trip
Eight days, an electric car, and the mental gymnastics of left-side driving. We caught a rare window of five consecutive sunny days in a country where the weather usually treats sunshine as a rumor. The Scotland route is a loop through the heart of the country, covering the Gothic streets of Edinburgh, the mysteries of Rosslyn Chapel, and the coastal air of St Andrews. It also included a family shed repair project in the Highlands—a reminder that a real road trip involves getting your hands dirty, not just looking through a windshield.
Rosslyn Chapel, founded in 1446, is a masterpiece of stone carving often obscured by the “Da Vinci Code” mythology. Whether or not the Holy Grail was ever hidden there is irrelevant; the actual craftsmanship is the real miracle. From there, we moved to the Falkirk Wheel. Opened in 2002, this is the only rotating boat lift in the world. It is a massive piece of kinetic sculpture that connects two canals sitting 24 metres apart. It uses a counterbalanced system so efficient it requires roughly the same amount of energy as boiling eight kettles of water to rotate.
No trip to Scotland is complete without the food. We found the benchmark near St Andrews: fish and chips wrapped in thick paper, eaten outside in the wind. No vinegar, no mustard, no pretension. Just the freshest catch from the North Sea and the realization that the best meals rarely happen at a table.
Luleå: The Winter Wonderland You Didn’t Know About
Holland to Luleå: 1,700 Kilometers North
Leaving the flat, predictable cycling paths of Holland in February to drive 1,700 kilometres north toward the Arctic Circle is an act of commitment. Luleå sits on the Gulf of Bothnia, just 150 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle. By mid-winter, the sea is frozen solid enough to support the weight of a truck. The drive north through Sweden is a lesson in scale—endless pine forests, frozen ferry crossings over the Baltic, and a temperature gauge that drops steadily as the sun spends less and less time above the horizon.
The mission was specific: filming a speed skating marathon on a frozen river. The ice was so transparent you could see the riverbed beneath your skates, a surreal experience of moving over a hidden world. The Arctic light at this latitude holds everything in a deep, electric blue that simply does not exist in the south.
Luleå isn’t a curated resort built for the “Northern Lights” tourist trade. It is a working industrial city where the infrastructure has to fight the cold every day. We rounded out the trip at a local hockey game. The atmosphere inside the arena is the opposite of the world outside—loud, humid, and aggressive. It’s a city that happens to be extraordinary because it functions in a place that feels like it shouldn’t.
Amsterdam to Friesland: Dutch Life Beyond the Canals
Amsterdam to Friesland
Amsterdam is a city of high-speed movement. Cyclists treat red lights as suggestions and trams move with the absolute confidence of a predator. Our base was the Volkshotel, a converted newspaper building that captures the city’s creative grit. But the real Netherlands begins once you leave the A10 ring road and head north toward Friesland.
The drive covers the cultural distance between two different versions of the same country. Amsterdam is cosmopolitan and internationally legible; Friesland is quiet, agricultural, and stubbornly authentic. We visited Giethoorn, the famous car-free village where transport is limited to canal boats. In the backyards of Frisian farmhouses, alpacas graze in paddocks. They aren’t there as a tourist attraction; they are just part of the local landscape.
The food here is a revelation for anyone used to airport Gouda. The cheese in local Frisian grocery stores is aged, crystalline, and carries a sharp depth of flavor. Friesland even maintains its own language, West Frisian, which is officially recognized by the government. The two-hour drive from the center of Amsterdam to the Frisian countryside feels like crossing a border into a world that doesn’t care if you’re watching or not.
COSTA RICA ROAD TRIP – Pura Vida Adventures
Costa Rica: Happiness is National Policy
Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948. That decision changed everything.
The money meant for defense went into education. Healthcare. Infrastructure. Green energy. The result: a Central American country running almost entirely on renewable energy, ranking among the happiest populations on Earth, with a national philosophy—pura vida—that actually means something.
We drove from the Central Valley to the Pacific coast. Cloud forests to volcanic regions. Eco-lodges in Monteverde to coastal sanctuaries in Guanacaste. The roads were maintained. The people relaxed. The landscape protected as national priority, not political talking point.
Pura vida isn’t marketing. It’s the actual greeting. The national mindset. Pure life. Simple life. Good life. Free education. Universal healthcare. No military spending bleeding the budget. A social safety net that functions. Costa Ricans focus on community and nature because the government built infrastructure that allows them to.
We hiked Santa Rosa National Park where howler monkeys and spider monkeys reclaimed what was once battleground. Watched sunrise over Montezuma’s beaches. Stood beneath waterfalls at Río Colorado. Explored volcanic landscapes at Rincón de la Vieja. The country runs on renewable energy—hydro, wind, geothermal. Protecting biodiversity attracts eco-tourism. Eco-tourism funds conservation. The cycle works.
The real beauty wasn’t the toucans or beaches. It was watching a society that figured out what most countries haven’t: invest in citizens’ wellbeing, protect the environment, create something rare. Not perfect—Costa Rica has problems—but a place where people consistently rank among the happiest on Earth without being the richest.
Costa Rica chose happiness over weapons, education over conflict, preservation over exploitation. Pura Vida isn’t just what they say—it’s how they live.