You've got to experiment and see what's best for you. The route preference is a personal thing. Our advice will get you started but you will have to test and tweak the route for your liking which may take weeks of riding. We'd like to hear though how your experiences are.

Use mapping software such as http://ridewithgps.com/ to measure distances. I find it helpful, sometimes a detour may seem a lot longer than it actually is.

Adam