UPDATED: Route 66 - planning tips/trip reports

[MichelleS]

Route 66 where do you start so much to see and do.
EZ66 is a good guide to start with and then there are a few phone apps Route66 Ultimate Guide & Route 66 navigation, both are free to download, but if you want to use for navigation you have to pay for the app, we used both of these to go through and find things we wanted to see on the way.
Car hire, we found BA the cheapest for car hire with Avis, we signed up on BA web site for a Blue Executive Club Member, which is free to do, then when you hire you get a second driver free. We the just hired the car through them no flights or anything else, done this a few times and they are cheaper then other sites. Also don’t hire a car from Chicago all the way to LA, it will cost a fortune, you need to split the hire at some point, we did Chicago to Las Vegas, dropped car off when we arrived and then picked another car up when we left to go from Las Vegas to LAX worked out at less than half the price of doing one hire, and also saved on parking costs in Las Vegas as its not cheap.
Fuel is cheapest at the start in Chicago and gets more expensive as you cross the USA, cost of gas can be wildly different from station to station, I know at one point 2 stations just a few hundred yards from each they were about 25% different in price, we used the gas buddy app on the phone to check local station prices, we normally refuelled at the end of each day or part way through the day if the tank got to half full, but never had any issue finding a site to refuel. Some station offer discounted prices for cash, and using your UK credit card to fill up is not easy and most stations the pump will not take your uk credit card as you need to input a usa zip code, so you have to go into the store and agree how much you want to put in then if you don’t use all that amount then it refunds the amount back to the credit card, we mainly used cash in the gas station as it was just easier.
Credit Cards, did not have any issues with using credit cards apart from the issues above at gas stations, but as we were moving hotels most days, you have to be aware that most hotel will put a set amount charge reserved to your card for each stay, this can be a few hundred pounds, as you are moving locations each day this will add up, this is cleared off after a few days but can add up and block some of your balance to use on the card so we had one card we used for this and once card we used for normal spending, just something to keep in mind.
Phone’s if you are not on a contact which gives you data in the USA, the cheapest way to do it is to get a free THREE pay as you go sim, you then just load £20 onto the sim and convert to a £20 bolt on you do this just before you go and this give you 12 GB for data while in the USA for 30 days, just make sure the phone is enabled for roaming and you have switched the roaming option on the three online account.
If you are staying in Chicago for a few days then parking is expensive so we got the train from the airport, very easy and then just picked up the car from a down town location when we were due to leave Chicago.
We like to plan so we had all our hotels booked before we left, booked hotels on expedia, via Quidco, Quidco give around 12% cashback on booking, you don’t get the cashback until you get back from the trip but we got £324 back so worth doing as could not find the hotels any cheaper directly or on other sites.
We stayed at the following hotels
4 nights – Chicago -Trump International Hotel
1 night – Springfield illinois - Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Springfield
1 night - St Louis - Best Western Kirkwood Inn
1 night – Springfield Missouri - Best Western Plus Coach House
1 night – Tulsa - Comfort Inn Midtown
1 night – Oklahoma - Hyatt Place Oklahoma City/Bricktown
1 night – Amarillo - Big Texan Motel
1 night – Albuquerque - Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town, Albuquerque
1 night – Gallup - El Rancho Hotel
1 night – Holbrook - Wigwam Motel
1 night - Monumet Valley - The View Cabins
1 night - Grand Canyon - Yavapai Lodge
1 night - Lake Havasu City - Holiday Inn Express And Suites
3 nights - Las Vegas - Harrah's Hotel and Casino Las Vegas
3 nights – Anaheim - Country Inn & Suites
All hotels were good apart from the Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Springfield Illinois.
If you are going to Monument Valley I would book the cabins lovely view of the Valley and great sunset / sunrise.
There are some other iconic hotel/motel, but by the time we were booking they had all sold out so if you are looking to stay in mainly iconic hotels you will need to book early.

Below is a list of all the point we marked that we wanted to visit each day
Chicago To Springfield
Castle Car Wash
Old Joliet Prison
Launching Pad
Polk-A-Dot Drive In
Shop / 2 Cell Jail
Ambler's Texaco Gas Station
Standard Oil Gas Station
Pontiac
Pontiac Walmart
Memory lane sign
Sprague Super Service Station
Paul Bunyan Statue
Railsplitter Covered Wagon
The Mill

Springfield To St Louis
Lincoln Home National Historic Site
Lincoln Monument
Turkey Tracks
Carlinville
Weezy's (FOOD)
Gateway Arch
Ted Drewes Frozen Custard

St Louis To Springfield
Meramec Caverns
Wagon Wheel Motel
Shelly Route 66 Café Cuba
Fannings (big Chair)
Stonehenge
Devils elbow
Frog Rock
Munger Moss Motel
Route 66 Museum

Springfield To Tulsa
Sinclair Station Route 66
Spencer Gas Station
Red Oak
66 Drive-In Theatre
Route 66 Mural Joplin
Cars on Route 66
Murals Galena
Rainbow Bridge
Baxter springs
Dairy King and gas station
Historic Route 66 marker
Old Gas station
Pryor Creek Bridge
Blue Whale
tulsa 66 road sign
Golden Driller Statue
Mother Road Market




Tulsa To Oklahoma City
Route 66 Historical Village
Hearts of route 66 Autos
Rock Creek bridge
Walmart Bristow
Rock Café
Pops Arcadia
OKC Outlets

Oklahoma City To Amarillo
Lake Overholser Bridge
Murals of El Reno
Lucille's Historic Gas Station
Oklahoma Route 66 Museum
Old Town Museum
Timber Creek Bridge
Welcome to Texas Sign
Conoco Tower Station
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ
VW Bug Ranch

Amarillo To Albuquerque
2nd amendment Cowboy
Cadillac Ranch
Midpoint Café
Tee Pee Curios
Blue Swallow
New Mexico Museum
Santa Fe
66 Diner
Albuquerque to Gallup
Loyola's Family Restaurant
Route 66 crossing sign
Route 66 neon drive thru
Continental Devide
Gallup Hotel

Gallup To Holbrook
Gallup Hotel
R66 Diner or R66 Railway Café
Giant Cowboy
Teepee Trading Post
Petrified Forest

Holbrook To Monument Valley
Holbrook Hotel
Jack Rabbit Trading Post
standing on a corner
Old Route 66 sign
Twin Arrows

Monument Valley To Grand Canyon
Forrest Gump's View Point
4 Corners

Grand Canyon to Lake Havasu
Giant Lumberjack
Sedona
Village of Oak Creek
Wildwest juction
Petes gas station
66 Wall sign
Delgadillo shop
50s gift shop
Hackberry General Store
Route 66 Tower
Mr D's Route 66 Diner

Lake Havasu To Las Vegas
Lake Havasu Hotel
Cool Springs Station
Look out point
Oatman
Route 66 sign on tower
California welcome sign
Ols Route 66 sign
Needles Railroad Borax
Hoover Dam

Las Vegas To Anaheim
Calico Ghost Town
Roy's Café
Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch
Emma Jean's Holland Burger Café
California Route 66 Museum
66 sign over road
First Macdonals
Wigwam hotel

If you use a Sat Nav to follow the route you will need to do a lot of data loading, Sat navs will if you just put the point you want to go to will just go on the interstates and not down the old iconic route 66 road, I did not want to have to keep on looking at maps on our way, so programmed the complete route into the sat nav, which involved putting loads of way points on the sat nav to ensure it kept on the old 66 route, which involved around 40 to 50 waypoints on each days trip…so a lot of work before we went but saved any issues when on the route as it followed the route I had planned with no issues. I found some states the signage of route 66 was poor seemed best in the first few states then was a bit hit and miss then on, so without the sat nav we could have spent a lot of time trying to work out the route…then again some people see this as part of the fun….but just not for me.
We never felt uneasy or worried about walking around Chicago felt very safe, St Louis we had been advised was not very safe at night, we drove into St Louis in the day did the arch etc and then had a hotel booked on the outskirts of the city which was a nice area and had no issues, The advise we had was correct as the following morning on the new a number of people had been shot overnight and some of these were around the gateway arch area, so not a safe place at night but ok in the day. We had also planned to visit the chain of rocks bridge in St louis but again had been advised it was not very safe, were advised not park on the Missouri as that side was very unsafe and it was not that much better on the Illinois side, and not to leave anything in the car in the car park which is a bit hard to do when you are traveling each day and have all your luggage in the car. So we did not go.
All other places we stayed were fine and we had no concerns over safety. One thing I did do as most USA car hires don’t have luggage parcel shelfs, I took a sheet of garden weed membranes, got from B&Q its lightweight and then just put over the luggage in the car, then with the blacked out windows you could not see anything in the back of the car.
Facebook have some route 66 groups with loads of info, the 2 we joined were Historic Route 66 & Route 66 Travelers.
We did some vidoes of our planned daily route and some video photos each day of our trip I will try and see if I can work out how to add them to the thread. But if you have any more questions let me know.

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by MichelleS

Route 66 where do you start so much to see and do.
EZ66 is a good guide to start with and then there are a few phone apps Route66 Ultimate Guide & Route 66 navigation, both are free to download, but if you want to use for navigation you have to pay for the app, we used both of these to go through and find things we wanted to see on the way.
Car hire, we found BA the cheapest for car hire with Avis, we signed up on BA web site for a Blue Executive Club Member, which is free to do, then when you hire you get a second driver free. We the just hired the car through them no flights or anything else, done this a few times and they are cheaper then other sites. Also don’t hire a car from Chicago all the way to LA, it will cost a fortune, you need to split the hire at some point, we did Chicago to Las Vegas, dropped car off when we arrived and then picked another car up when we left to go from Las Vegas to LAX worked out at less than half the price of doing one hire, and also saved on parking costs in Las Vegas as its not cheap.
Fuel is cheapest at the start in Chicago and gets more expensive as you cross the USA, cost of gas can be wildly different from station to station, I know at one point 2 stations just a few hundred yards from each they were about 25% different in price, we used the gas buddy app on the phone to check local station prices, we normally refuelled at the end of each day or part way through the day if the tank got to half full, but never had any issue finding a site to refuel. Some station offer discounted prices for cash, and using your UK credit card to fill up is not easy and most stations the pump will not take your uk credit card as you need to input a usa zip code, so you have to go into the store and agree how much you want to put in then if you don’t use all that amount then it refunds the amount back to the credit card, we mainly used cash in the gas station as it was just easier.
Credit Cards, did not have any issues with using credit cards apart from the issues above at gas stations, but as we were moving hotels most days, you have to be aware that most hotel will put a set amount charge reserved to your card for each stay, this can be a few hundred pounds, as you are moving locations each day this will add up, this is cleared off after a few days but can add up and block some of your balance to use on the card so we had one card we used for this and once card we used for normal spending, just something to keep in mind.
Phone’s if you are not on a contact which gives you data in the USA, the cheapest way to do it is to get a free THREE pay as you go sim, you then just load £20 onto the sim and convert to a £20 bolt on you do this just before you go and this give you 12 GB for data while in the USA for 30 days, just make sure the phone is enabled for roaming and you have switched the roaming option on the three online account.
If you are staying in Chicago for a few days then parking is expensive so we got the train from the airport, very easy and then just picked up the car from a down town location when we were due to leave Chicago.
We like to plan so we had all our hotels booked before we left, booked hotels on expedia, via Quidco, Quidco give around 12% cashback on booking, you don’t get the cashback until you get back from the trip but we got £324 back so worth doing as could not find the hotels any cheaper directly or on other sites.
We stayed at the following hotels
4 nights – Chicago -Trump International Hotel
1 night – Springfield illinois - Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Springfield
1 night - St Louis - Best Western Kirkwood Inn
1 night – Springfield Missouri - Best Western Plus Coach House
1 night – Tulsa - Comfort Inn Midtown
1 night – Oklahoma - Hyatt Place Oklahoma City/Bricktown
1 night – Amarillo - Big Texan Motel
1 night – Albuquerque - Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town, Albuquerque
1 night – Gallup - El Rancho Hotel
1 night – Holbrook - Wigwam Motel
1 night - Monumet Valley - The View Cabins
1 night - Grand Canyon - Yavapai Lodge
1 night - Lake Havasu City - Holiday Inn Express And Suites
3 nights - Las Vegas - Harrah's Hotel and Casino Las Vegas
3 nights – Anaheim - Country Inn & Suites
All hotels were good apart from the Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Springfield Illinois.
If you are going to Monument Valley I would book the cabins lovely view of the Valley and great sunset / sunrise.
There are some other iconic hotel/motel, but by the time we were booking they had all sold out so if you are looking to stay in mainly iconic hotels you will need to book early.

Below is a list of all the point we marked that we wanted to visit each day
Chicago To Springfield
Castle Car Wash
Old Joliet Prison
Launching Pad
Polk-A-Dot Drive In
Shop / 2 Cell Jail
Ambler's Texaco Gas Station
Standard Oil Gas Station
Pontiac
Pontiac Walmart
Memory lane sign
Sprague Super Service Station
Paul Bunyan Statue
Railsplitter Covered Wagon
The Mill

Springfield To St Louis
Lincoln Home National Historic Site
Lincoln Monument
Turkey Tracks
Carlinville
Weezy's (FOOD)
Gateway Arch
Ted Drewes Frozen Custard

St Louis To Springfield
Meramec Caverns
Wagon Wheel Motel
Shelly Route 66 Café Cuba
Fannings (big Chair)
Stonehenge
Devils elbow
Frog Rock
Munger Moss Motel
Route 66 Museum

Springfield To Tulsa
Sinclair Station Route 66
Spencer Gas Station
Red Oak
66 Drive-In Theatre
Route 66 Mural Joplin
Cars on Route 66
Murals Galena
Rainbow Bridge
Baxter springs
Dairy King and gas station
Historic Route 66 marker
Old Gas station
Pryor Creek Bridge
Blue Whale
tulsa 66 road sign
Golden Driller Statue
Mother Road Market




Tulsa To Oklahoma City
Route 66 Historical Village
Hearts of route 66 Autos
Rock Creek bridge
Walmart Bristow
Rock Café
Pops Arcadia
OKC Outlets

Oklahoma City To Amarillo
Lake Overholser Bridge
Murals of El Reno
Lucille's Historic Gas Station
Oklahoma Route 66 Museum
Old Town Museum
Timber Creek Bridge
Welcome to Texas Sign
Conoco Tower Station
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ
VW Bug Ranch

Amarillo To Albuquerque
2nd amendment Cowboy
Cadillac Ranch
Midpoint Café
Tee Pee Curios
Blue Swallow
New Mexico Museum
Santa Fe
66 Diner
Albuquerque to Gallup
Loyola's Family Restaurant
Route 66 crossing sign
Route 66 neon drive thru
Continental Devide
Gallup Hotel

Gallup To Holbrook
Gallup Hotel
R66 Diner or R66 Railway Café
Giant Cowboy
Teepee Trading Post
Petrified Forest

Holbrook To Monument Valley
Holbrook Hotel
Jack Rabbit Trading Post
standing on a corner
Old Route 66 sign
Twin Arrows

Monument Valley To Grand Canyon
Forrest Gump's View Point
4 Corners

Grand Canyon to Lake Havasu
Giant Lumberjack
Sedona
Village of Oak Creek
Wildwest juction
Petes gas station
66 Wall sign
Delgadillo shop
50s gift shop
Hackberry General Store
Route 66 Tower
Mr D's Route 66 Diner

Lake Havasu To Las Vegas
Lake Havasu Hotel
Cool Springs Station
Look out point
Oatman
Route 66 sign on tower
California welcome sign
Ols Route 66 sign
Needles Railroad Borax
Hoover Dam

Las Vegas To Anaheim
Calico Ghost Town
Roy's Café
Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch
Emma Jean's Holland Burger Café
California Route 66 Museum
66 sign over road
First Macdonals
Wigwam hotel

If you use a Sat Nav to follow the route you will need to do a lot of data loading, Sat navs will if you just put the point you want to go to will just go on the interstates and not down the old iconic route 66 road, I did not want to have to keep on looking at maps on our way, so programmed the complete route into the sat nav, which involved putting loads of way points on the sat nav to ensure it kept on the old 66 route, which involved around 40 to 50 waypoints on each days trip…so a lot of work before we went but saved any issues when on the route as it followed the route I had planned with no issues. I found some states the signage of route 66 was poor seemed best in the first few states then was a bit hit and miss then on, so without the sat nav we could have spent a lot of time trying to work out the route…then again some people see this as part of the fun….but just not for me.
We never felt uneasy or worried about walking around Chicago felt very safe, St Louis we had been advised was not very safe at night, we drove into St Louis in the day did the arch etc and then had a hotel booked on the outskirts of the city which was a nice area and had no issues, The advise we had was correct as the following morning on the new a number of people had been shot overnight and some of these were around the gateway arch area, so not a safe place at night but ok in the day. We had also planned to visit the chain of rocks bridge in St louis but again had been advised it was not very safe, were advised not park on the Missouri as that side was very unsafe and it was not that much better on the Illinois side, and not to leave anything in the car in the car park which is a bit hard to do when you are traveling each day and have all your luggage in the car. So we did not go.
All other places we stayed were fine and we had no concerns over safety. One thing I did do as most USA car hires don’t have luggage parcel shelfs, I took a sheet of garden weed membranes, got from B&Q its lightweight and then just put over the luggage in the car, then with the blacked out windows you could not see anything in the back of the car.
Facebook have some route 66 groups with loads of info, the 2 we joined were Historic Route 66 & Route 66 Travelers.
We did some vidoes of our planned daily route and some video photos each day of our trip I will try and see if I can work out how to add them to the thread. But if you have any more questions let me know.

See more...

Thank you SO much for this epic reply. This is amazingly helpful! Some of the things you mention I have heard of and planned in, but others I haven't so I will look into them.

We had planned to use the satnav for the cities only, and the EZ66 for the rest but I think putting the route bit by bit into the satnav before the journey sounds like a great way to stay on route without one of us having our head in a book all the time.

Very helpful information about the area around gateway arch, I was looking at booking a Hilton hotel right beside it but I'll re-think that now. My reasoning was that we will arrive in St. Louis late afternoon and would do the arch early the next morning before continuing our journey. I'm already on my 3rd version of the plan, I think a 4th might be required to make sure we arrive in St. Louis earlier in the day. It doesn't sound like a good place at all. Unfortunately, due to work, we only have 2 weeks so our first day was going to be Chicago to St. Louis. To fit everything in we need to do over 300 miles each day.

May I ask where in downtown Chicago you collected your hire car? We have 2 nights in Chicago and are getting the El train from the airport then picking up the car on the day we leave. We had planned to go back to O'Hare to collect the car.

Thank you for the tip re splitting the car hire. I had heard this before but the last time I priced it there wasn't any price difference but I'll have another look. We'll look at BA standalone car hire as well. We originally thought we would get a BA flydrive but when we booked the flights the car hire element had gone up a lot. So we booked flights along with our Chicago hotel to make a package. That's the only hotel we've booked so far but I'm sure we will book all of our accommodation before we go. Thanks for the hotel recommendations.

I think it will take me several days to go through all of the things you have mentioned so I'll be dipping in and out of this reply and making notes for a while! Thanks again Michelle, I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this reply

[f1girly]

Originally Posted by MichelleS

Route 66 where do you start so much to see and do.
EZ66 is a good guide to start with and then there are a few phone apps Route66 Ultimate Guide & Route 66 navigation, both are free to download, but if you want to use for navigation you have to pay for the app, we used both of these to go through and find things we wanted to see on the way.
Car hire, we found BA the cheapest for car hire with Avis, we signed up on BA web site for a Blue Executive Club Member, which is free to do, then when you hire you get a second driver free. We the just hired the car through them no flights or anything else, done this a few times and they are cheaper then other sites. Also don’t hire a car from Chicago all the way to LA, it will cost a fortune, you need to split the hire at some point, we did Chicago to Las Vegas, dropped car off when we arrived and then picked another car up when we left to go from Las Vegas to LAX worked out at less than half the price of doing one hire, and also saved on parking costs in Las Vegas as its not cheap.
Fuel is cheapest at the start in Chicago and gets more expensive as you cross the USA, cost of gas can be wildly different from station to station, I know at one point 2 stations just a few hundred yards from each they were about 25% different in price, we used the gas buddy app on the phone to check local station prices, we normally refuelled at the end of each day or part way through the day if the tank got to half full, but never had any issue finding a site to refuel. Some station offer discounted prices for cash, and using your UK credit card to fill up is not easy and most stations the pump will not take your uk credit card as you need to input a usa zip code, so you have to go into the store and agree how much you want to put in then if you don’t use all that amount then it refunds the amount back to the credit card, we mainly used cash in the gas station as it was just easier.
Credit Cards, did not have any issues with using credit cards apart from the issues above at gas stations, but as we were moving hotels most days, you have to be aware that most hotel will put a set amount charge reserved to your card for each stay, this can be a few hundred pounds, as you are moving locations each day this will add up, this is cleared off after a few days but can add up and block some of your balance to use on the card so we had one card we used for this and once card we used for normal spending, just something to keep in mind.
Phone’s if you are not on a contact which gives you data in the USA, the cheapest way to do it is to get a free THREE pay as you go sim, you then just load £20 onto the sim and convert to a £20 bolt on you do this just before you go and this give you 12 GB for data while in the USA for 30 days, just make sure the phone is enabled for roaming and you have switched the roaming option on the three online account.
If you are staying in Chicago for a few days then parking is expensive so we got the train from the airport, very easy and then just picked up the car from a down town location when we were due to leave Chicago.
We like to plan so we had all our hotels booked before we left, booked hotels on expedia, via Quidco, Quidco give around 12% cashback on booking, you don’t get the cashback until you get back from the trip but we got £324 back so worth doing as could not find the hotels any cheaper directly or on other sites.
We stayed at the following hotels
4 nights – Chicago -Trump International Hotel
1 night – Springfield illinois - Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Springfield
1 night - St Louis - Best Western Kirkwood Inn
1 night – Springfield Missouri - Best Western Plus Coach House
1 night – Tulsa - Comfort Inn Midtown
1 night – Oklahoma - Hyatt Place Oklahoma City/Bricktown
1 night – Amarillo - Big Texan Motel
1 night – Albuquerque - Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town, Albuquerque
1 night – Gallup - El Rancho Hotel
1 night – Holbrook - Wigwam Motel
1 night - Monumet Valley - The View Cabins
1 night - Grand Canyon - Yavapai Lodge
1 night - Lake Havasu City - Holiday Inn Express And Suites
3 nights - Las Vegas - Harrah's Hotel and Casino Las Vegas
3 nights – Anaheim - Country Inn & Suites
All hotels were good apart from the Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Springfield Illinois.
If you are going to Monument Valley I would book the cabins lovely view of the Valley and great sunset / sunrise.
There are some other iconic hotel/motel, but by the time we were booking they had all sold out so if you are looking to stay in mainly iconic hotels you will need to book early.

Below is a list of all the point we marked that we wanted to visit each day
Chicago To Springfield
Castle Car Wash
Old Joliet Prison
Launching Pad
Polk-A-Dot Drive In
Shop / 2 Cell Jail
Ambler's Texaco Gas Station
Standard Oil Gas Station
Pontiac
Pontiac Walmart
Memory lane sign
Sprague Super Service Station
Paul Bunyan Statue
Railsplitter Covered Wagon
The Mill

Springfield To St Louis
Lincoln Home National Historic Site
Lincoln Monument
Turkey Tracks
Carlinville
Weezy's (FOOD)
Gateway Arch
Ted Drewes Frozen Custard

St Louis To Springfield
Meramec Caverns
Wagon Wheel Motel
Shelly Route 66 Café Cuba
Fannings (big Chair)
Stonehenge
Devils elbow
Frog Rock
Munger Moss Motel
Route 66 Museum

Springfield To Tulsa
Sinclair Station Route 66
Spencer Gas Station
Red Oak
66 Drive-In Theatre
Route 66 Mural Joplin
Cars on Route 66
Murals Galena
Rainbow Bridge
Baxter springs
Dairy King and gas station
Historic Route 66 marker
Old Gas station
Pryor Creek Bridge
Blue Whale
tulsa 66 road sign
Golden Driller Statue
Mother Road Market




Tulsa To Oklahoma City
Route 66 Historical Village
Hearts of route 66 Autos
Rock Creek bridge
Walmart Bristow
Rock Café
Pops Arcadia
OKC Outlets

Oklahoma City To Amarillo
Lake Overholser Bridge
Murals of El Reno
Lucille's Historic Gas Station
Oklahoma Route 66 Museum
Old Town Museum
Timber Creek Bridge
Welcome to Texas Sign
Conoco Tower Station
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ
VW Bug Ranch

Amarillo To Albuquerque
2nd amendment Cowboy
Cadillac Ranch
Midpoint Café
Tee Pee Curios
Blue Swallow
New Mexico Museum
Santa Fe
66 Diner
Albuquerque to Gallup
Loyola's Family Restaurant
Route 66 crossing sign
Route 66 neon drive thru
Continental Devide
Gallup Hotel

Gallup To Holbrook
Gallup Hotel
R66 Diner or R66 Railway Café
Giant Cowboy
Teepee Trading Post
Petrified Forest

Holbrook To Monument Valley
Holbrook Hotel
Jack Rabbit Trading Post
standing on a corner
Old Route 66 sign
Twin Arrows

Monument Valley To Grand Canyon
Forrest Gump's View Point
4 Corners

Grand Canyon to Lake Havasu
Giant Lumberjack
Sedona
Village of Oak Creek
Wildwest juction
Petes gas station
66 Wall sign
Delgadillo shop
50s gift shop
Hackberry General Store
Route 66 Tower
Mr D's Route 66 Diner

Lake Havasu To Las Vegas
Lake Havasu Hotel
Cool Springs Station
Look out point
Oatman
Route 66 sign on tower
California welcome sign
Ols Route 66 sign
Needles Railroad Borax
Hoover Dam

Las Vegas To Anaheim
Calico Ghost Town
Roy's Café
Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch
Emma Jean's Holland Burger Café
California Route 66 Museum
66 sign over road
First Macdonals
Wigwam hotel

If you use a Sat Nav to follow the route you will need to do a lot of data loading, Sat navs will if you just put the point you want to go to will just go on the interstates and not down the old iconic route 66 road, I did not want to have to keep on looking at maps on our way, so programmed the complete route into the sat nav, which involved putting loads of way points on the sat nav to ensure it kept on the old 66 route, which involved around 40 to 50 waypoints on each days trip…so a lot of work before we went but saved any issues when on the route as it followed the route I had planned with no issues. I found some states the signage of route 66 was poor seemed best in the first few states then was a bit hit and miss then on, so without the sat nav we could have spent a lot of time trying to work out the route…then again some people see this as part of the fun….but just not for me.
We never felt uneasy or worried about walking around Chicago felt very safe, St Louis we had been advised was not very safe at night, we drove into St Louis in the day did the arch etc and then had a hotel booked on the outskirts of the city which was a nice area and had no issues, The advise we had was correct as the following morning on the new a number of people had been shot overnight and some of these were around the gateway arch area, so not a safe place at night but ok in the day. We had also planned to visit the chain of rocks bridge in St louis but again had been advised it was not very safe, were advised not park on the Missouri as that side was very unsafe and it was not that much better on the Illinois side, and not to leave anything in the car in the car park which is a bit hard to do when you are traveling each day and have all your luggage in the car. So we did not go.
All other places we stayed were fine and we had no concerns over safety. One thing I did do as most USA car hires don’t have luggage parcel shelfs, I took a sheet of garden weed membranes, got from B&Q its lightweight and then just put over the luggage in the car, then with the blacked out windows you could not see anything in the back of the car.
Facebook have some route 66 groups with loads of info, the 2 we joined were Historic Route 66 & Route 66 Travelers.
We did some vidoes of our planned daily route and some video photos each day of our trip I will try and see if I can work out how to add them to the thread. But if you have any more questions let me know.

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Amazing, thank you.

[Sue]

Hi Lynda - sorry for delayed response and I see you’ve had a thorough response from Michelle. What we both need to think about with my report is more than 9 years old (wow). I know a lot of people have enjoyed going to the Gateway Arch and St Louis itself, perhaps our route just took us to a very run down part of the city and most cities have them.
We didn’t enjoy Missouri at all, found it crushingly poor and genuinely shocked at some of the poverty we saw ( however we’ve been to southern Alabama since and that is much much worse!).

We definitely enjoyed the southern states of Route 66 more and have returned to Santa Fe twice since as we loved it that much (different road trips).
Vegas seems to be Marmite and needs to be seen for yourselves, we visit it often now but only because we can fly direct from MAN! We get there, pick up a hire car and leave lol.

We used a really old guide book and some individual maps which I can’t recall where they were from, I’ll try and dig them out and let you know

You will have a fabulous time, there is so much to see and people enjoy different things, enjoy it.

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by Sue

Hi Lynda - sorry for delayed response and I see you’ve had a thorough response from Michelle. What we both need to think about with my report is more than 9 years old (wow). I know a lot of people have enjoyed going to the Gateway Arch and St Louis itself, perhaps our route just took us to a very run down part of the city and most cities have them.
We didn’t enjoy Missouri at all, found it crushingly poor and genuinely shocked at some of the poverty we saw ( however we’ve been to southern Alabama since and that is much much worse!).

We definitely enjoyed the southern states of Route 66 more and have returned to Santa Fe twice since as we loved it that much (different road trips).
Vegas seems to be Marmite and needs to be seen for yourselves, we visit it often now but only because we can fly direct from MAN! We get there, pick up a hire car and leave lol.

We used a really old guide book and some individual maps which I can’t recall where they were from, I’ll try and dig them out and let you know

You will have a fabulous time, there is so much to see and people enjoy different things, enjoy it.

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Time flies, doesn't it! Nine years ago, my children were actually children, and now they're adults making their own way. We were just about to embark on our very first trip to Orlando in October 2010 . When I was reading your report I tried to bear in mind that some things would have changed, especially the prices!

It's great that you discovered a place you love (Santa Fe) on your trip and have managed to visit again. I think you're right about Vegas, we'll give it a try and see what we think. I'm sure it's a spectacle that has to be experienced at least once!

After reading several bad reports about the St Louis area, we're going to shuffle our plans about a bit so that we visit it in the day and are gone by night.

I was worried that it was the EZ66 guide that was putting you to all the strange side trips. Hoping the book and satnav combined will keep us right.

Thank you for all of your advice Sue, I'm sure we'll have a great time. We're very excited as well as a little apprehensive as we've never done a road trip before.

[Sue]

Lynda, here is what we used! We cross referenced a lot of stuff as there was snippets to be found in all of them. We also found it useful to have a proper map of all the states we visited and think that the Rand McNally ones that are easily available here on amazon the best. We’ve built up quite a collection now!

Not sure if those maps are still available but worth looking out for.

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by Sue

Lynda, here is what we used! We cross referenced a lot of stuff as there was snippets to be found in all of them. We also found it useful to have a proper map of all the states we visited and think that the Rand McNally ones that are easily available here on amazon the best. We’ve built up quite a collection now!

Not sure if those maps are still available but worth looking out for.

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Thanks Sue, hopefully the later versions of EZ66 have sorted out any weird side trips! I've started looking through mine but haven't got very far yet. Those maps are still available, I've seen them on amazon. Thank you so much for digging these out so I could see what you used

[MichelleS]

Originally Posted by Fuellady

Thank you SO much for this epic reply. This is amazingly helpful! Some of the things you mention I have heard of and planned in, but others I haven't so I will look into them.

We had planned to use the satnav for the cities only, and the EZ66 for the rest but I think putting the route bit by bit into the satnav before the journey sounds like a great way to stay on route without one of us having our head in a book all the time.

Very helpful information about the area around gateway arch, I was looking at booking a Hilton hotel right beside it but I'll re-think that now. My reasoning was that we will arrive in St. Louis late afternoon and would do the arch early the next morning before continuing our journey. I'm already on my 3rd version of the plan, I think a 4th might be required to make sure we arrive in St. Louis earlier in the day. It doesn't sound like a good place at all. Unfortunately, due to work, we only have 2 weeks so our first day was going to be Chicago to St. Louis. To fit everything in we need to do over 300 miles each day.

May I ask where in downtown Chicago you collected your hire car? We have 2 nights in Chicago and are getting the El train from the airport then picking up the car on the day we leave. We had planned to go back to O'Hare to collect the car.

Thank you for the tip re splitting the car hire. I had heard this before but the last time I priced it there wasn't any price difference but I'll have another look. We'll look at BA standalone car hire as well. We originally thought we would get a BA flydrive but when we booked the flights the car hire element had gone up a lot. So we booked flights along with our Chicago hotel to make a package. That's the only hotel we've booked so far but I'm sure we will book all of our accommodation before we go. Thanks for the hotel recommendations.

I think it will take me several days to go through all of the things you have mentioned so I'll be dipping in and out of this reply and making notes for a while! Thanks again Michelle, I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this reply

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Hi we got our AVIS car hire from the office at Downtown, 214 North Clark Street, they also have a couple more pick up locations in downtown. as i said i do have some little route plan videos i did before we left and also short photo montages videos but cant find anyway of uploading these to the Dibb, and if anyone knows how to do it let me know, or if you join the facebook group Historic Route 66, and then search within this group for my surname 'Simpson' you should find them all which my husband uploaded to the group from around early May this year.

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by MichelleS

Hi we got our AVIS car hire from the office at Downtown, 214 North Clark Street, they also have a couple more pick up locations in downtown. as i said i do have some little route plan videos i did before we left and also short photo montages videos but cant find anyway of uploading these to the Dibb, and if anyone knows how to do it let me know, or if you join the facebook group Historic Route 66, and then search within this group for my surname 'Simpson' you should find them all which my husband uploaded to the group from around early May this year.

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I joined the Historic Route 66 Facebook group last week so I’ll have a search. When we were looking at a BA flydrive we looked at the city car hire pick up places as an alternative but it only showed one option in a dodgy area.

Thanks for that address, I’ll do a bit more research into the other car hire sites.

[MichelleS]

Also just remembered starting next Thursday 12th Sept is the Hairy Bikers - Route 66 at 9pm on BBC2. they did the route a few days before we did it.