Personally I am not a fan of clouds, flew into one once that was thin mist but become a full on cloud around me - not a fun experience.
I do try to go over them, the air seems smoother.
On my recent trip down from the US I tried something I saw mentioned on there and referred to as the thumb trick - I was dubious but gave it a go.
Rest your hand on the glareshield - line up top of thumb with top of cloud - keep still for a count of about 3-5 - if the cloud creeps about the thumb you are going to go through it, if it creeps down you are going over. Works for the bottoms of clouds too - best thing I ever saw on here and it worked perfectly, I skimmed over the tops of a few using it.
Not a fan of going around clouds - I do steer around the columns of cloud that climb out of the layers though.
Down here I find that there is generally a layer with bottoms at about 3,000ft and tops up to about 6,000 - weird thing is buzzing along it always seems that one is surrounded by clouds that are all 360 degrees around but 5-10 miles away (it's a visual thing with some 5 miles and behind the at 10 miles etc etc) - I have some photos of the effect if I could figure out how to attach them.