California really is a place on a different plane. We have the lowest place in America, the hottest place on Earth, desolation that will make you yearn for humanity and density that will make you yearn for desolation. There's the busiest ports in America (Los Angeles and Long Beach), wine country, Hollywood and Disneyland.

Our recent road trips issue demonstrated how wondrous the Golden State and its environs are.

This week the folks at personal finance site WalletHub looked at elements such as scenery, cost, road conditions, weather and attractions and came up with a ranking of “2015’s Best and Worst States for Summer Road Trips.”

California ranked … pretty low. You'd think the home of Lake Tahoe, the Golden Gate Bridge and San Juan Capistrano would just dominate. Alas, our “driving and lodging” costs are almost the worst in America.

We ranked 48th on that metric.

Our “road conditions and safety” rank was in the middle, at 28. We lucked out on that one. We have some of the most pothole-infected roads in America. And, well, you know all about the traffic.

The good news is that we dominated where it counts:

We're No. 2 when it comes to “fun and scenic attractions.” Only No. 1 Washington state (?!) beat us in that category. Whatever.

We placed first in the category of “most scenic byways.”

Credit: WalletHub

Credit: WalletHub

The best states, overall, for summer road trips are Oregon, Nevada, Minnesota, Washington and Ohio, WalletHub says. Yeah. We hear Cleveland is beautiful this time of year.

A WalletHub rep sent us this stunning, California-specific data: “California has 22 times more scenic byways than Connecticut. California has eight times more car thefts per 100,000 residents than Vermont.”

In fact we're No. 1 on this list for car thefts per capita.

We're still the place to be, on the road or off it.

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