Route 66

[rimfire4969]

A group of 5 of us are thinking of doing Route 66 in a few years to celebrate a couple of 50th birthdays. Five guys who have been good friends for many years and have been on holiday together before. It seems about a 14 day trip, we would add a couple more days at the end. We would possibly rent a big RV for the trip.

 

Anyone done Route 66, is it worth doing?

[chady]

I haven't but a good friend has.

 

He went for 14 nights and wished he had only done 1/2 the route as they had to cover ex amount of distance a day they spent more or less all of it driving. So you need to factor that into it, if you want to be driving every day or want breaks in between

[clakk]

Google Billy Conellys route 66 trip.He did it on a Harley but stopped at most of the good places on the road and some obscure ,like or loathe him it,l give u a few ideas atb

[GingerCat]

A few mates did it in one year and it was all they spoke about for bloody ages.from that I'm guessing it's worth a go.

[wandringstar]

fly to california and spend your 14 nights there, you can drive up pacific highway for miles and miles if you want, or just do what you want, i wouldnt want to drive for 14 nights, waste of a holiday.

[100milesaway]

Not very scenic until you get over towards the west . from Auntie,.

[rimfire4969]

fly to california and spend your 14 nights there, you can drive up pacific highway for miles and miles if you want, or just do what you want, i wouldnt want to drive for 14 nights, waste of a holiday.

Already have the Pacific highway trip planned, flying into San Francisco, starting in the Napa Valley wine area and finishing down near San Diego. Some amazing sites and some fantastic surf spots.

 

We have no problem driving everyday, all 5 of us will drive and in a 40' Winneabago all part of the fun.

[wandringstar]

sounds great.

[hawkfanz]

me an my late wife used to got to florida[fort myers] and stay with her cousin and on some occasions i used to drive from there to ashland ohio and have a week with auntie,distance was 1260 miles each way i did it in 2 days each way with one overnight stay both ways,i found it dead easy to do it so i guess route 66 at 2448 miles should be easy to do in 14 days.

[figgy]

Wife and I looked into doing it in a classic American car. Not very much of the route is left most places that were along it originally have closed down and parts of it are to be polite run down. As others have said it's a long drive and we decided against it. The Pacific coast highway is supposed to be a lot more scenic but not as legendary as Route 66.

[pontbeck]

Drove from San Francisco to San Diego twice, couldn't recommend it highly enough, fantastic.

[Vince Green]

The original 'routes' system in America were just that, a series of very ordinary roads strung together to get you from A to B by following the signposts. That's because they didn't have a proper national road system back then

 

As the vehicle traffic increased bigger roads were built by-passing the old roads and a lot of the old towns that had had a boom for a few decades from all the through trade went into decline and died again

 

Real purists try to do the old 1930s route and that is very hard and very slow. Almost archaeology, because the modern route66 bears little resemblance to how it was back them.

 

The real attraction of Route 66 is all the places that you can stop off at and detour to on the way, not the road itself. You can drive it in about 5 days but you won't see much, or you can take three months and see everything.

Edited February 20, 2017 by Vince Green

[wandringstar]

The original 'routes' system in America were just that, a series of very ordinary roads strung together to get you from A to B by following the signposts. That's because they didn't have a proper national road system back then

 

As the vehicle traffic increased bigger roads were built by-passing the old roads and a lot of the old towns that had had a boom for a few decades from all the through trade went into decline and died again

 

Real purists try to do the old 1930s route and that is very hard and very slow. Almost archaeology, because the modern route66 bears little resemblance to how it was back them.

 

The real attraction of Route 66 is all the places that you can stop off at and detour to on the way, not the road itself. You can drive it in about 5 days but you won't see much, or you can take three months and see everything.

 

have you done it then?

[Vince Green]

have you done it then?

Not really, I had a friend Ray who lived fairly near Flagstaff Arizona so I have been on bits of it. Its a big tourist thing now in a state like Arizona where they don't really have a lot else to draw the tourists.

 

We always said we were going to do it end to end, I got very deep into planning a trip about ten years ago, read all the books, watched stuff on youtube and started mapping it out at a day by day level.

 

We never did it, things like my family commitments got in the way, Ray had heart problems, initially minor, which were getting more difficult to the point where it became impossible to do a trip like that, and he died last year.

 

Another mutual friend Jim who lived in Omaha with whom we used to do the American and European battlefields, was going to come with us but he died very suddenly a few years back so lots of things never happened.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Vince Green

[MrM]

Drove from San Francisco to San Diego twice, couldn't recommend it highly enough, fantastic.

Try also going north from San Francisco up to places like Bishop - very scenic as well

[wandringstar]

Not really, I had a friend Ray who lived fairly near Flagstaff Arizona so I have been on bits of it. Its a big tourist thing now in a state like Arizona where they don't really have a lot else to draw the tourists.

 

We always said we were going to do it end to end, I got very deep into planning a trip about ten years ago, read all the books, watched stuff on youtube and started mapping it out at a day by day level.

 

We never did it, things like my family commitments got in the way, Ray had heart problems, initially minor, which were getting more difficult to the point where it became impossible to do a trip like that, and he died last year.

 

Another mutual friend Jim who lived in Omaha with whom we used to do the American and European battlefields, was going to come with us but he died very suddenly a few years back so lots of things never happened.

ok, its a big commitment for a holiday, ive got a feeling a lot of it would be a bore, and it just sounds glamorous.

 

Remember 55mph is a slow speed, best to go to Germany and get on the autobahns.

[Vince Green]

ok, its a big commitment for a holiday, ive got a feeling a lot of it would be a bore, and it just sounds glamorous.

 

Remember 55mph is a slow speed, best to go to Germany and get on the autobahns.

The more you look into it the more interesting places along the route you find to stop off and spend a day so it develops into mission creep. To just drive it would be tedious and largely pointless. You could spend a couple of days in Flagstaff for example. That was on the old wagon trail route that pre-dated Route 66 and part of the original route in 1927 was wagon trails.

 

They closed down Route 66 in about 1985 because it had become redundant. The large interstate highways carried all the traffic by then. It was resurrected a few years ago by campaigners but virtually none of the present road plan is original. Its really a system of by-passes around ghost towns that died when the cars and trucks stopped coming through.

 

Some of those ghost towns are now Route 66 heritage sites, classic American 50s style small towns they now draw the tourists. Mid way between quaint and tacky.

[Guest GMK]

Research is the key. Remember California is 800 miles long! What a trip

[69chris]

we did Vegas to San Francisco at Christmas, almost 600 miles in a bright yellow mustang

 

i thought id hate driving over there but it was great - cant wait to go again