Route 66 Road Trip Guide: Celebrating 100 Years of America's Mother Road

The freedom of the open road has always been a siren song for Americans—including me—and in 2026, there’s a big reason to gas up and get out there. Route 66, arguably the USA’s most iconic road trip, clocks a century since its creation. Stretching 2,448 miles from Chicago to Santa Monica, California, it breezes through the entire American landscape, from graffiti-covered ghost towns to Maserati traffic jams in Beverly Hills.

It hasn’t been an easy road to the century milestone. In fact, in 1985, Route 66 was officially removed from the US highway system, ripped out and replaced in large sections by interstate highways, often bypassing the towns that the Mother Road once helped nourish. What’s left now is a patchwork of high-speed freeways, parallel frontage roads, curious detours and dead ends that are in many places impossible to navigate without assistance.

Route 66, the Main Street of America, passes through eight states—Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California—in a perfect cross-section of the country. Still lined with neon signs, mom-and-pop diners and retro motels, it has long evoked a feeling of nostalgia for simpler times. Travelers of all sorts—vacationers, yes, but also Dust Bowl refugees, Black people fleeing the Jim Crow South and hippie artists living in their VW vans—journeyed on Route 66 in search of change. Today, it remains a rare unified thread that connects America’s diverse places, with the power to transform the travelers who take it on.

Roadside attractions

I recently embarked on a three-week road trip to see what the journey is like today. An avowed completionist, I decided to tackle the entire journey in the traditional direction: from east to west. On my first night in Chicago, I checked into the historic Palmer House hotel with its gasp-worthy mural-covered lobby. The hotel is perfectly placed just a block from the “Historic 66: Begin” sign.

With all of their attractions and distractions, the big cities on Route 66 can steal your time, but it’s the small towns that steal your heart. I was enchanted by Atlanta, Illinois, where the American Giants Museum opened in 2023 to celebrate “Muffler Men,” larger-than-life fiberglass sculptures of Paul Bunyans, astronauts, and Vikings created in the 1960s to catch the eyes of passersby. A giant Paul Bunyan holds not a blue ox or an ax but an oversized hot dog, while a Texaco “Big Friend” waves visitors into the museum.

Crossing the Mississippi River into Missouri and escaping the tangle of streets in St. Louis, the road gets wilder, hugging the limestone cliffs of the Ozarks. After passing advertisements plastered on billboards and painted on barns, I stopped at Meramec Caverns, Missouri’s largest commercial cave and a classic roadside stop for generations. I joined a tour to marvel at its stalactite-filled interior illuminated in a rainbow of LEDs and listen to stories of various capers that occurred inside the cave, from outlaw Jesse James once storing his loot here to long-ago high schoolers slow dancing at prom under the disco ball that still hangs from the ceiling.

Even though Kansas has fewer than 13 miles of the Mother Road, it’s a must-stop for fans of Pixar’s Cars movies. The International Harvester truck that inspired the character Tow Mater sits outside Cars on the Route, a cafe and gift shop in a revamped Kan-O-Tex gas station in Galena. A few miles later in Baxter Springs, I ran into Dean Walker, who was working at the Kansas Route 66 Visitors Center. The creators of Cars were motivated in part by Walker’s tell-it-like-it-is style when they gave Tow Mater his salt-of-the-earth but slightly mischievous personality, which shone through as Walker loaded me up with an armful of brochures and an earful of travel advice.

Plains to plateaus

In Oklahoma, Route 66 started to feel more like the open road that I’d imagined. The forests faded and gave way to prairie as far as the eye could see, and patches of civilization became fewer and farther between.

On a Sunday morning, I found myself in tiny Erick at the state’s western edge. Expecting the whole town to be in church, I figured sightseeing would be impossible. But when I wandered toward the Sandhill Curiosity Shop, I heard loud laughter and clanging tambourines. I opened the squeaky screen door to find a huge group of travelers from Spain squeezed among the jumble of junk with percussion instruments in hand, while shop owner Harley Russell strummed a guitar and sang a raunchy version of the song “(Get Your Kicks) on Route 66” in his own kind of Sunday sermon.

After the dusty plains of Texas, the pastel desert landscapes of New Mexico stirred my soul, as did its done-up vintage lodgings. At the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, for instance, the neon sign advertises “100% refrigerated air,” and you can pull your car into your own garage next to your room—as long as it’s the same size as a 1939 Ford Deluxe.

 

Through Arizona, the route is otherworldly. I peered over the edge of Meteor Crater Natural Landmark, a gaping impact site nearly a mile wide, and roamed among colorful rock fragments in Petrified Forest National Park, which also has a rusted-out 1932 Studebaker partially buried in sand, marking where Route 66 once went straight through the park. Lingering rain clouds put a damper on my visit to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, but an employee manning one of the giant telescopes showed me photos that he’d taken of Jupiter.

The next day, I rested the car in Williams and took a detour aboard the historic Grand Canyon Railway, which delivered me straight to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. On arrival, I was greeted by one of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever witnessed: a rainbow arching between the canyon’s striped cliffs.

The final stretch

After hours of driving through the California desert, I reentered civilization—and backed-up traffic. Finally, I checked in at the Fairmont Miramar, converted from a private estate into a luxe hotel in 1921, across from Santa Monica Beach at the end of the continent. The “End of the Trail” signs stand at nearby Santa Monica Pier, where I got my final diner cheeseburger and frozen custard of the trip from Pier Burger.

Later, I headed back to the Fairmont, where a group of travelers stood around a piano in the lobby, belting out John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” The next morning as I packed my suitcase to start home with that song stuck in my head, I teared up at how far I’d come on this epic journey.

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Whether you're chasing vintage neon signs or looking for a comfortable place to rest after a long day on the road, Route 66 offers countless lodging options that capture the spirit of the Mother Road. Here are five of our favorite places to stay that blend historic charm with modern comfort. Each one is a destination in its own right.

Places to stay

• Best Western Route 66 Rail Haven, Springfield, Missouri
  “Elvis stayed here!” blazes on the sign of this historic hotel opened in 1938 and updated with modern amenities.
• El Rey Court, Santa Fe, New Mexico
  History goes hip at this 1936 adobe motor court, with a food truck and live music at the bar.
• El Vado Motel, Albuquerque, New Mexico
  Revamped in 2018, some of the rooms of this 1930s motel have been changed into boutique shops and small-scale eateries.
• Trailborn Grand Canyon, Williams, Arizona
  Opened in 2025, this boutique spot revamped a 1960s Route 66 lodge in stunning Southwestern style.
• Pasadena Hotel & Pool, Pasadena, California
  This hotel was built the same year as Route 66, and road-weary travelers still kick back in the oversize rooms and the rooftop pool.