The Four Corners is far too prosaic of a name for the strikingly beautiful territory that respects no man-made boundaries in the southwestern United States.

Overview
Long before some surveyor drew straight perpendicular lines to create Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, the forces of time were busy carving and painting this desert into a much more amorphous pastiche of natural wonders. Attempt this 525-mile drive in a single day and you'll miss the point. This landscape took thousands of years to create; you'll never appreciate it at 65 miles per hour. Instead, take two days at least, stopping to walk through the numerous parks, preserves, monuments, and unnamed places whose beauty defies categorization

Start in Flagstaff
Leaving Flagstaff (http://flagstaff.az.us), head not along the beaten path to the Grand Canyon, some 73 miles north, but rather east, in search of less heralded jewels. Take Interstate 40 to Winslow (home to a famous corner, commemorated by a mural, a bronze statue, and an annual “Standin' on a Corner” festival)—then continue for 58 miles until you cross into Petrified Forest National Park (www.nps.gov/pefo). It's more of a looking park than a hiking or biking park, but the exquisite colors of the Painted Desert are captivating from the various viewpoints on the main park drive within a few miles of the Interstate. You'll want to drive deeper into the park to see the petroglyphs etched into Newspaper Rock or the eponymous petrified logs of Crystal Forest.

Canyon de Chelly National Monument
Continue east on I-40 to U.S. 191 and head north to Canyon de Chelly National Monument (www.nps.gov/cach).This U.S. Park Service installation is as rich in color and history as the surrounding Navajo reservation land is poor. Indigenous peoples have lived among these 1,000-foot-high, auburn-colored cliffs for nearly 5,000 years, leaving behind them their cave paintings, pottery, kivas, and permanent structures they appended to the fanciful rock formations that first drew them here.