relative pronouns: “where I'd never been before” or “to which I'd never been before”?
I agree with others that either "where" or "to which" could work in that sentence. Shoe mentions pied-piping for "to which". I think "where" works because it can be substituted with "in which". Which to use is based on preference. I'd expect more people would choose "where" because "to which" feels overly formal.
However, you have another dilemma: Given two correct answers, how do you choose which one to select?
- If you are taking a class, does either answer fit into recently covered topics?
- If you know the person who wrote the question, does that person have a particularly formal usage style?
Sometimes there are additional instructions that specifically exclude some correct answers. Double check to ensure you haven't overlooked them.
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Analyze the answer choices. The correct answer is often written first with distracters written later. This means there is a high probability that one or more of the distracters will resemble the correct answer.
- "which" – by dropping "to" from "to which"
- "to that" – by substituting "which" with "that" in "to which"
- "where" – this is the odd one out
Notice that the words "to" and "which" appear in twice as many of the answers as any of the other words. This means there is a very good chance that those words will appear in the (intended) "correct" answer. In this case, just string them together – "to which".
Suppose "to where" were also an option. The word "to" would have appeared thrice, while "where" and "which" would both have appeared twice. This analysis still favors "to which", but it's not as strong as before. I also now wonder if the intended distracter was "to where" instead of "where".
This type of answer is unfair and would have been revised prior to administration in a standardized exam. If it somehow made it past the review process, it would be dropped during scoring. For educational purposes, it's useful to analyze why answers are correct or not, as you are doing.