Hiring a car and driving up and down the highways of California and beyond is certainly an adventure worth taking if you're heading to the States. Road trips around and through the California region can offer the stunning Pacific coast, scenic highways and the famous Route 66, which starts East and ends up on Californian shores. Here are three roads you might like to cruise in your car with the roof-top down and the radio turned up.

Pacific Coast Highway
This road trip starts at the north point of San Francisco and heads south, via a coastal route towards Los Angeles. It is the only highway that goes through the Big Sur region, famous for its rural landscape of waves crashing against the giant cliffs and has a few small bohemian towns that provide a respite from the road. Stop off along the way at Hurricane Point for a particularly wild and windswept view. Malibu is also on this route and a great place for surfing or chilling out on the beach. Expect a coastal drive that passes diverse sceneries of orange groves, palm trees and ocean cliff tops. There are also lots of all-American diners for that traditional burger-and-coke truck-stop lunch. With this trip - and most on a California route - you may appreciate your car hire being organised so that you have a car waiting at either Los Angeles or San Francisco airports, that way you can head out to the highway on arrival. Most bookings can be done online, with companies like Holiday Autos picking you up and letting you drop off the vehicle at major airports.

Route 66
Route 66 has been mentioned in so many songs that it also goes by the nickname 'Rock N Roll Highway'. It is 2,448 miles long, starting in Chicago and stopping at the Californian beaches of Santa Monica in Los Angeles. This is a long road trip and you'll certainly need to get the map out to plot places to stop, see and stay in, so you break up the mammoth journey. Some great food stops include The Metro Diner in Tulsa - where Elvis dined - and the Big Texan Steak House in Amarillo, famous for its overwhelmingly large 72 oz steak. In Gallup, New Mexico why not check into the El Rancho hotel, which served as the Hollywood headquarters for many Westerns shot in the 40s and 50s. Remember that you'll be stopping a lot and crashing in new towns and hotels like this a fair bit, so to protect you and your car from mishaps en route, make sure you get a good travel insurance package, AA Travel do packages to suit this style of holiday.

Highway 99
Highway 99 runs from Calexico - on the Mexican border - to Blaine in Washington, a main route in the 1930s for those driving up the state to find work in the Depression-era. This is a road trip for any fan of authentic old-style California and has a landscape that remains mostly untouched. You'll drive through almond orchards, peach trees and some vintage hamburger stands - relics that have been sitting around since the 1930s Depression. Expect a bit of a ramshackle feel on this trip, with a few growing towns along the way that will be worth checking out. If you just wanted to experience a little of this highway it would be easy enough to incorporate it with one of the other road trips. Why not make a small diversion and head south towards the border for a couple of days for Mexican food and taverna night-life before heading back up to Los Angeles.

Dialaflight.com is a good place to find reasonably priced flights to USA destinations. Here's a few of their best deals right now:

 
Flights to San Francisco start at £371 (inc. tax) from Birmingham between 12 February 2010 and 31 March 2010.

Flights to Los Angeles start at £319 (inc. tax) from Gatwick between 15 February 2010 and 22 February 2010.