I ride 11-42 with a 40t chainring and am relatively happy with it. On more "road" type rides, I've been toying with getting an 11-34 or so, for smoothness.

My current cassette has 36 as the penultimate gear and then 42. I rarely use either unless I'm towing the baby trailer uphill or I'm doing things on the gravel bike that might be considered more mountain biking.