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The Route 66 Roadtrip · Route 66
The great American detour
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The great American detour
The Route 66 Roadtrip · Route 66
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See trips like this Talk to a specialistWhy you’ll love it
Diners, neon motels, and roadside dinosaurs. The detour is the point. A GoSmart specialist tailors the route, the stays, and the pace to you.
Why it works
Somewhere past Amarillo the radio fades to static and it is just you, a straight ribbon of old concrete, and a neon motel sign buzzing to life against a bruised desert sky. You pull over for pie you did not need, and it turns out to be the best part of the day.
Worth knowing
It is no longer one continuous highway. The old road survives in stitched-together alignments beside the interstate, so a dedicated guidebook or a turn-by-turn app is what keeps you on the historic route instead of the freeway.
If you want to experience Route 66 rather than simply drive it, give yourself at least two weeks if your schedule allows. People who try to knock it out in five days spend the whole time on I-40 and miss the point, which is the slow detours and the roadside oddities.
Long stretches through the Mojave and the Texas panhandle are remote. Keep the tank above half, carry water, and do not count on cell service between towns.
About the place
Route 66 runs roughly 2,400 miles from Chicago to the pier in Santa Monica, threading eight states and a century of American road culture through diners, ghost towns, and hand-painted signs.