How/when to use ng-click to call a route?

Routes monitor the $location service and respond to changes in URL (typically through the hash). To “activate” a route, you simply change the URL. The easiest way to do that is with anchor tags.

<a href="#/home">Go Home</a>
<a href="#/about">Go to About</a>

Nothing more complicated is needed. If, however, you must do this from code, the proper way is by using the $location service:

$scope.go = function ( path ) {
  $location.path( path );
};

Which, for example, a button could trigger:

<button ng-click="go('/home')"></button>