As for drive ways as someone said its all dependent on personal opinions.
Mine personally is to go for gravel the reason being... Is that: (When using
large gravel (Pebbles))
a) for large drives its beats paving in terms of cost and ease of fitting,
b) alerts you to anyone approaching the house, the amount of times ive been
woken by a car driving round the drive at 2am only to drive out again.

however its not ideal as someone mentioned because it does tend to
distribute everywhere and also is a bugger for weeds. Next time if we dont
go for pebbles we will probably go for cobbles with a bit of gravel for the
noise.