UPDATED: Route 66 - planning tips/trip reports

[Fuellady]

Does anyone know if there are any Route 66 trip reports on here that I could have a read of? I've had a search but can't find any.

Also, for anyone who has driven Route 66, I'd love to know your must do/must avoids for attractions, accommodation and food.

Any other hints/tips welcome, as we're just starting to plan.

UPDATE: 01.09.19 - We have booked our flights for this amazing trip... 30th April - 14th May 2020. So excited Planning begins in earnest now, the spreadsheet is started!

I have checked out all of the suggestions made when I started this thread a while ago, and found some other reports that cover parts of the route. We are doing the full route from Chicago to Santa Monica with side trips to Monument Valley, Grand Canyon and Las Vegas.

If anyone has any more tips or must do's for any part of our route, all suggestions gratefully received. It's such a huge trip to plan with lots of different options along the way so I would love to hear other's experiences.

[Tweety1]

Following

[Fuellady]

So, I'm guessing there's not much interest in Route 66 amongst Dibbers then! I'm quite surprised because I see people asking about many diverse holidays and more often than not, a few people have personal experience to share.

Ah well, back to my own research I go...…

[Geordieprincess]

A friend of mine drove Route 66 over a month last summer on her own with her 2 kids.
She had a blast. I was in awe of her bravery, having never driven abroad before to take on something as epic as that.
She wrote a blog about it...

escapetheordinary2018.blogspot/

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by Geordieprincess

A friend of mine drove Route 66 over a month last summer on her own with her 2 kids.
She had a blast. I was in awe of her bravery, having never driven abroad before to take on something as epic as that.
She wrote a blog about it...

escapetheordinary2018.blogspot/

See more...

Thank you for the link to your friends blog, I'm very interested in reading about other people's experiences of the route to help me with planning our own trip. I'll definitely have a read of it.

[Olympiad]

Hi - we haven't done all of Route 66 but have done the section between Santa Fe and LA (with some diversions so we skipped some sections).

Santa Fe is worth spending a bit of time at with a nice town square. Albuquerque worth a visit to drive along the R66 section (worth a drive along the 'singing road' which is a very short section where bumps on the road play a tune as you drive over). We visited a lot of Breaking Bad sites if that's of interest. The old town square in Albequerque is nice. We visited Rattlesnake musuem just off there and had a great breakfast in the Church St cafe. The food in New Mexico is great - be sure to try the green chile stew.

Drive through rest of New Mexico was scenic. We stopped off in Gallup to call in to the famous El Rancho hotel (where lot of hollywood stars stayed when westerns were filmed in the area). We did a quick stop at Continental Divide, which as per the name is the point at which all rivers on one side flow to the Pacific and on the other to the Atlantic.

In to Arizona it's worth driving through the Painted Desert and Perified forest. We stayed at the Wigwam motel in Holbrook which is as it sounds - concrete wigwams (it appears in the film Cars as well). Joe and Aggies cafe in Holbrook is good.

We then headed up to Momument Valley and the Grand Canyon, rejoining R66 at Williams - this is a nice R66 town and Twisters cafe is a typical type of cafe from the era.

Our next stopover was at Seligman. We stayed at the Historic Route 66 motel whcih was good. Dinner at the Roadkill cafe was great as was breakfast in Westside Lilos cafe. Delgadios Snowcap does great shakes.

Our next notable stop was Oatman, up the mountains from Kingman. A quaint little town and has wild burros roaming the streets (you can buy bags of feed for them in the local shops).

We then whizzed the rest through California (after a diversion up to Vegas) but some nice stop off points in Cadiz, Bagdad and Amboy, finishing up in Santa Monica where we spent 4 nights.

Hope some of that is of use with your planning.

[WileyCoyote]

Sounds fun Lynda
Bless him Geoffa started a pre trip for a Route 66 trip , it’s in the General pre trip section and has some good tips. So sad he didn’t get to take the trip

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by Olympiad

Hi - we haven't done all of Route 66 but have done the section between Santa Fe and LA (with some diversions so we skipped some sections).

Santa Fe is worth spending a bit of time at with a nice town square. Albuquerque worth a visit to drive along the R66 section (worth a drive along the 'singing road' which is a very short section where bumps on the road play a tune as you drive over). We visited a lot of Breaking Bad sites if that's of interest. The old town square in Albequerque is nice. We visited Rattlesnake musuem just off there and had a great breakfast in the Church St cafe. The food in New Mexico is great - be sure to try the green chile stew.

Drive through rest of New Mexico was scenic. We stopped off in Gallup to call in to the famous El Rancho hotel (where lot of hollywood stars stayed when westerns were filmed in the area). We did a quick stop at Continental Divide, which as per the name is the point at which all rivers on one side flow to the Pacific and on the other to the Atlantic.

In to Arizona it's worth driving through the Painted Desert and Perified forest. We stayed at the Wigwam motel in Holbrook which is as it sounds - concrete wigwams (it appears in the film Cars as well). Joe and Aggies cafe in Holbrook is good.

We then headed up to Momument Valley and the Grand Canyon, rejoining R66 at Williams - this is a nice R66 town and Twisters cafe is a typical type of cafe from the era.

Our next stopover was at Seligman. We stayed at the Historic Route 66 motel whcih was good. Dinner at the Roadkill cafe was great as was breakfast in Westside Lilos cafe. Delgadios Snowcap does great shakes.

Our next notable stop was Oatman, up the mountains from Kingman. A quaint little town and has wild burros roaming the streets (you can buy bags of feed for them in the local shops).

We then whizzed the rest through California (after a diversion up to Vegas) but some nice stop off points in Cadiz, Bagdad and Amboy, finishing up in Santa Monica where we spent 4 nights.

Hope some of that is of use with your planning.

See more...

Thank you very much for this. Some of the things you've mentioned are already on my list (Wigwam motel, Williams, Grand Canyon, Oatman). But some new things also that I hadn't come across in my research yet. I'll take some time and check them all out.

[Fuellady]

Originally Posted by WileyCoyote

Sounds fun Lynda
Bless him Geoffa started a pre trip for a Route 66 trip , it’s in the General pre trip section and has some good tips. So sad he didn’t get to take the trip

See more...

Thanks for this Amanda. I'll have a dig around to find Geoffa's pre-trip. Even if it's incomplete I'm sure there will be some valuable help and information in it. Yes, such a shame he never made it there.

[Fuellady]

Just giving this a wee bump to see if anyone has any extra info that can help with my planning