Dear Atlas: What Parts of Route 66 Are Worth the Drive?

* * *

Dear Atlas,

Route 66! The completist in me wants to do every inch of it, but the realist in me knows that I can’t afford a vacation of that length. If I want to get the Route 66 feel without doing the whole thing, what parts are not to be missed?

As much as Route 66 is an icon of Americana road tripping, the reality today is that a continuous route no longer exists in its entirety. Sections of the highway were gradually replaced with other interstates over the years, until the official Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985.

ATLAS OBSCURA BOOKS

A Visual Odyssey Through the Marvels of Life

Venture into Nature's Unseen Realms with Our New Book Atlas Obscura: Wild Life Order Now

That doesn’t mean you can’t still experience the nostalgia of the automobile journey—its ghostly impressions are still scattered across pit stops, small towns, and lonely swaths of desert. You’ll just want to head to specific sections in order to capture the feel from the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, when the route was at its peak. And luckily I-40 runs pretty much exactly along the old highway for nearly 1,000 miles, from Oklahoma City to Barstow, California.

Our first suggestion for a more Atlas Obscura experience? Skip the biggest cities. Of course many urban areas within the route—from the start in Chicago to its end in Los Angeles—have their own worthwhile hotspots, including notable plaques and museums commemorating the historic highway. Yet going through a major metropolis with over a million residents feels more like a hunt for hidden Easter eggs rather than a fuller immersion into the past.

If you want a more transportive journey, it’s the liminal spaces in between the skyscrapers that have remained the most unchanged, where dreamlike muffler men wave at passersby and abandoned gas stations are scattered like old pop bottles tossed out the window.

To capture that feeling, head to the stretch between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Flagstaff, Arizona. Rather than simply zipping from point A to point B, you’ll want to give yourself a few hours each day to take detours off the highway, since pit stops are what capture the nostalgic feel. In terms of choosing a direction, we’d say start with what’s most familiar.

If you live on the West Coast, head east, and vice versa. That’s not just for convenience, it’s also to capture the authentic historical feeling of people starting from their own driveways and being more and more wowed as they witnessed changing landscapes the further they got from their homes.

Oklahoma

On the Oklahoma end, start (or end) in Foyil at the monument to Andy Payne, a Cherokee Nation citizen who ran and won a 3,400-mile race—like a real-life Forrest Gump—as part of a campaign to promote Route 66. Then walk through the mouth of the famous Blue Whale and jump off its tale into the Catoosa swimming hole.

Next, catch sight of your first muffler man at the legendary Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios, which is as attention-grabbing as it was intended to be to broadcast auto shops, restaurants, and stores to road travelers. The 21-foot-tall fiberglass statue sits near two other Route 66 treasures in Tulsa: the Meadow Gold Sign and Blue Dome.

Then get out of town. The original 66 highway zigzags along with I-44 before disappearing in chunks around Oklahoma City, and then reemerges intertwined with I-40. On your way, stop by a motorcycle museum, an old counterfeiting filling station, a giant milk bottle, and a 66-foot-tall neon soda statue. Before leaving the state, check out a museum dedicated to the Mother Road and a Ferris wheel that once signaled the route’s end in Santa Monica, so you don’t even have to fret about making it to California.

Texas

The highway then enters Texas, where quite a few Route 66 stops have been restored. Detour to U-Drop Inn, an Art Deco cafe that was once a crowded must-visit for road trippers, including Elvis. Then drive with a full tank to a restored 1929 gas station just for its retro vibes, as it’s no longer functioning, as well as the severely tilted water tower, meant to scare nervous drivers into a long-gone shop.

On the way, pop in to the Devil’s Rope Museum for its display of Route 66 artifacts in addition to the extensive barbed wire collection. And of course don’t skip Cadillac Ranch, an automobile art installation that inspired others around the country.

New Mexico

Make sure to stop by the ghost town of Glenrio straddling the border of Texas, which dried up when the Mother Road was decommissioned. Make a similar detour to the ruins of a western-themed amusement park. On your way there, do like the original tourists and visit the Blue Hole oasis, then chow down at the Route 66 Diner.

Since Native American culture was often appropriated and exploited along Route 66 with inaccurate stereotypes, local Indigenous tribes have been working to reclaim stretches with their own representation. On your way through Albuquerque, stop by Indian Pueblo Kitchen, a Route 66 hotel, and the Gaits’i Gift Shop that sells pottery, textiles, and jewelry, as the Acoma people often did to Route 66 tourists in the 20th century.

Arizona

The longest stretch of preserved Route 66 spans through Arizona, as if preserved by the dry desert air. Get a warm welcome into the state at the Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert, full of colorful fossilized trees that have long attracted Route 66ers. On your way out, pass the rusted 1932 automobile stationed at a pullout overlooking the park as an ode to America’s Main Street. Continuing to several abandoned sites, see the remains of violent Wild West towns at Bucket of Blood Street, Canyon Diablo, and Two Guns.

Pass more ruins of old trading posts at Ella’s Frontier and Twin Arrows, or visit the still-functioning trading posts at Jack Rabbit and Historic Peach Springs. Skip any appropriating Wigwam hotels and instead enjoy an Indigenous-owned experience at Hualapai Lodge. Spend some time in the revived town of Winslow and end in Flagstaff. There you can visit a historic taxidermy-museum-turned-bar, continue onward to more ghost towns before hitting California, or wrap up your trip by heading to the nearby Grand Canyon.

* * *

Danielle Hallock is a former senior editor at Atlas Obscura, Thrillist, and Culture Trip, as well as a writer for National Geographic, Well+Good, and Time Out. She’s been working in travel since 2018, after four years as a managing editor at Penguin Random House. As a Chilean-American, crossing cultures and mountains is in her nature, and she continues to grow her collection of books, bagged summits, and passport stamps. Though she has a hard time sitting still, Brooklyn has become her base camp.