US 66 end to end in 2026

[hbelkins]

My brother had broached the subject of possibly another week-plus road trip and asked me to come up with suggestions.

Given that this is the 100th anniversary of the creation of the US highway system, and also given that a friend of mine recently rode from Chicago to LA on his Harley, I'm thinking about pitching a US 66 trip to my brother for his consideration.

25-30 years ago, I got my dad several books about historic US 66 that mentioned various routes for different time frames during the existence of the road as a marked highway. They were very descriptive of the routes since at that time the road was not well-marked. I have no idea what happened to those books, so they won't be available in trying to plan our trip.

I'm curious as to how well the historic route is marked, especially in the cities (Chicago, STL, Springfield, Joplin, Tulsa, OKC, Amarillo, ABQ, and LA). Are there any states in which it's not particularly well-signed? In the western states, is the old road still in existence, or was the pavement overlaid by the interstate? I'd want to be as authentic to the old route is possible; making time on I-55 or I-44 or I-40 would be great, but not if it's at the expense of driving on the original alignment. (Note that I'm not interested in chasing every dead-end alignment of the old road.)

Also, what's the best direction in which to approach such a trip, east to west or vice-versa? Would we be better off making a beeline for LA and then following the old road back to Chicago, or starting in Chitown and ending in LA?

Finally, anything in particular that we should look out for? Must-sees? Tourist traps to avoid at all costs? And anyplace that's particularly unsafe besides East St. Louis?

Timeframe for the trip would be late August-early September, according to my brother.

[ModernDayWarrior]

The original routing through North St. Louis is not particularly well-signed. I missed a couple of turns when I traced it out myself a few months ago.

From St. Louis to Springfield it is well-signed, though a decent chunk of it is just the I-44 frontage road and therefore pretty dull. The Springfield segment was well-signed last time I was there and probably still is, but it's been a few years since I've passed through there. Not sure about the Joplin segment as I have not driven that part.

[Max Rockatansky]

Arizona signs 66 segments pretty well.  The original alignments of 66 that followed the NOTR are pretty much gone between Santa Fe and Cajon Pass (with some notable exceptions like the Canyon Diablo Bridge).  The post-1930s alignments in the Mojave are well signed but have substantial washouts involving destroyed bridges.  Some of the broken bridges can (especially between Chambless and Essex) be bypassed with high clearance. 

[pderocco]

The web has lots of sites that include maps of various degrees of accuracy or detail, including some kml or kmz files that you can open in Google Earth.

As to direction, if you don't care about replicating the experience in the same order as most of the migrants, and you're likely to be driving at sunset but not sunrise, eastbound would keep the low sun out of your eyes.

[Jim]

Having just been in Springfield, MO, and Tulsa, OK, for a work trip, I can say that both of those and many places in between sign it extremely well.  Both the final route before decommissioning and earlier routings.  These cities really lean into the marketing for it and it seems nearly every business on the highway through those areas has "US 66" or "Mother Road" or something like that as part of its name or at least painted on the building.  I really enjoyed driving those stretches.  Springfield bills itself as the "Birthplace of US 66" and is planning big events related to the 100th, and Tulsa bills itself as the "Capital of US 66".  My experience on other trips is that a lot of towns along the way are equally proud of their US 66 history (or at least want a little piece of the business related to it) and do a good job making sure you know it's there.

I wouldn't rely on it as your sole source if you're concerned about hitting every turn correctly, but you can load up TM's Mapview with all of the signed US Historic routes we're aware of:

https://travelmapping.net/user/mapview.php?units=miles&u=null&sys=usaush

Then switch from "Highlight Traveled" to "Highlight All" to be able to see better.

[Scott5114]

I would work under the assumption that no signs exist along the entire route and proceed from there. Much of the interesting routings have been dropped from the state rolls, so you're kind of at the mercy of city and county governments, with the addition of the odd marker placed by a historical society. We all know how that goes. The route was also realigned several times over the years, which will give you a few different alignments you can choose between, some of which will be marked better than others. So I would suggest doing some research ahead of time and plotting out the route you want to take.

For the route through cities, it shouldn't be too hard to find a scans of 1950s state DOT maps with insets that show which streets the numbered routes ran on.

[hbelkins]

Also, how many days should we allot for the US 66 trip itself? He's liable to want to take a side trip or two on the non-66 portion of the trip.

I'm going to guess he'll be driving his Nissan Titan pickup truck, so high clearance wouldn't be an issue.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Might be worth making a side trip to Santa Fe, which was on the route of the original 66 before it was moved to a more direct E-W alignment between ABQ and Santa Rosa.

New Mexico is one of my favorite food states. The cafe at Duran Pharmacy in ABQ (right on old 66, known locally as Central Avenue) has the best tortillas I've ever had.

[Max Rockatansky]

Also, how many days should we allot for the US 66 trip itself? He's liable to want to take a side trip or two on the non-66 portion of the trip.

I'm going to guess he'll be driving his Nissan Titan pickup truck, so high clearance wouldn't be an issue.

That really depends on how much you're stopping and doing side trips.  You'll pick up a lot of miles fast once you get to Texas.  West of Santa Fe maybe three days?

[CoreySamson]

Local municipalities in Oklahoma tend to sign Route 66 really well, from what I've noticed. Tulsa has two alignments of 66, which TM notes very well. It is fairly hard to follow the 1926 route in downtown with lots of backtracking on one-way streets required, so I would recommend sticking to the main route.

Here are some things off the route in Oklahoma you might be interested in:
- Ghost town of Picher, OK, located right off 66
- 100 year old truss bridge in Chelsea
- Old alignment of the Will Rogers Turnpike in Catoosa
- Rock Creek bridge in Sapulpa (now closed to traffic)
- Old narrow 4-lane alignment of 66 near Erick, OK

[vdeane]

Road Guy Rob just did a video on the Illinois portion of US 66, with Missouri coming next time.  It might provide some food for thought.  The series feels almost like a virtual roadmeet.

[NWI_Irish96]

I've stood at both ends of Route 66 on the same day.

[akt85]

Somewhere on YouTube there is a video of the entire length of Route 66 in the present day from Chicago to Santa Monica condensed into 11 Hours.

[cahwyguy]

Max (Tom) alerted me to the fact you are doing this. First and foremost: If you do make it out to Southern California, I'd love to meet you in person. I find discussions are much better when you actually know somebody in person.

For the California Segments, I've got a lot of the information on my Route 66 page (https://www.cahighways.org/ROUTE066.html). There were a few reroutings of the terminus, which we've pretty well figured out (thanks to Tom's research).

I hope to be able to meet you (although note that if you start in LA, I'll be out of town 8/21-28).