2026 Visit USA Travel Planner Highlights

ROUTE 66

PICTURED Main image: Swallow Motel. Bottom: Cadillac Ranch. Top right: Classical Gas Museum. Middle right: Imperial Motel;

Bottom right: Route 66 Museum, Oklahoma.

NEW MEXICO TRUE

The Route 66 Centennial Great Race, a nine-day cross-country rally from Illinois to California for vintage cars, will take place in June 2026

NEW MEXICO TOURISM DEPARTMENT

IT’S A GAS Several gas (petrol) stations from the heyday of Route 66 still survive. Preserved examples can be found in Shamrock, Texas, where the Art Deco 1936 Conoco gas station landmark is topped by a tall tower, at Embudo’s Classical Gas Museum in New Mexico and at Ranch Cucamonga in California, where the vivid yellow Cucamonga Service Station has been restored to its original look. DINE IN STYLE Get your snacks on Route 66 in original diners and restaurants converted from iconic buildings from its prime. In Illinois, feast on pancakes and breakfasts at Lou Mitchell’s, by the road’s starting point in Chicago, and dine among historic memorabilia at Ariston Café in Litchfield, both of which predate the road’s opening. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, eat at 66 Diner, which started out in 1945 as a service station, and El Camino Dining Room, which has served customers for 75 years. And visit the Monarch Pharmacy & Soda Fountain in Baxter Springs, Kansas, and a former gas station, Cruiser’s Café 66, in Williams, Arizona.

MOTEL MAGIC Nothing shouts Route 66 more than its iconic roadside motels with their with neon signs. These include New Mexico quartet the Blue Swallow (Tucumcari), Hotel El Rancho (Gallup) and Albuquerque’s Imperial and Monterey motels, the Lincoln Motel in Chandler, Oklahoma; the Route 66 Motel in Barstow, California; and the oldest continuously operated motel on Route 66, the restored Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba, Missouri. Sleep in tepee-style rooms at the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

OKLAHOMA

TOURISM &

RECREATION

DEPARTMENT

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