Best Road Trip Routes in Minnesota

Minnesota's road trips span the legendary North Shore drive, the Mississippi River valley, the Iron Range mining heritage, and the lakes-and-forests of central Minnesota.

North Shore Drive (US-61 from Duluth to Grand Portage)
The definitive Minnesota road trip — 150 miles of Lake Superior shoreline from Duluth north to the Canadian border. Key stops: Canal Park (Duluth's restored warehouse district), Split Rock Lighthouse (1910, on a 130-foot basalt cliff), Gooseberry Falls SP, Tettegouche SP (Shovel Point), Temperance River SP, Cascade River SP, Grand Marais (the finest small town on Minnesota's North Shore), the Gunflint Trail (57 miles into the BWCAW), and Grand Portage NM (the hub of the 18th-century fur trade). Allow 2–3 days; the concentration of parks, waterfalls, and lake scenery is extraordinary.

Iron Range Heritage Tour
From Duluth northwest to Hibbing (the Hull-Rust-Mahoning open pit mine — 4 miles long, described by the US Congress in 1966 as the 8th Wonder of the World), the Iron Range Interpretive Center in Chisholm, Virginia and Eveleth (US Hockey Hall of Fame), the Soudan Underground Mine State Park (the deepest underground mine in Minnesota — 2,341 feet), and Ely (gateway to the BWCAW). Bob Dylan was born in Duluth and grew up in Hibbing — the Bob Dylan Museum is in Hibbing.

Great River Road (Mississippi Headwaters to Iowa Border)
Following the Mississippi River south from Lake Itasca — Bemidji (the giant Paul Bunyan statue, claimed to be the first one built in the US), Little Falls (Charles Lindbergh's childhood home), St. Cloud (the granite quarrying capital of the US), the Twin Cities, Red Wing (a beautiful Mississippi River bluff town), Wabasha (National Eagle Center — bald eagles gather here in winter when the Mississippi stays open below the lock and dam), and Winona (the finest Mississippi River bluff town in Minnesota).