Get your kicks

It is certainly not the route less travelled, but one that has come to be a symbol of what hitting the open road is all about. A part of popular culture and even something of a right of passage, Route 66 is one of those road trips that every true automotive enthusiast needs to experience for themselves. In the morning, Route 66 might take you meandering through a valley of green pines and grazing cattle. By afternoon, you could be crossing desolate upland and as evening approaches, low light brings out the colour and beauty of monumental sandstone outcrops, which glow red and pink and cast long purple shadows. You'll be transfixed as the sun slides down behind canyons like a fireball – this is a landscape to make your soul sing.

Legendary Route 66 is one of the most splendid roads in North America. 

If you think you’ve seen its landscapes before in old Clint Eastwood movies, the reality will make you gasp. True, there are parts of Route 66 – a good half of it, truth be told – that might see you dozing off, but the section that runs across New Mexico and Arizona to finish on the California coast is magnificent.

Route 66 was a federal highway established in 1926 that ran 3940 kilometres in a diagonal slash across America from Chicago to Santa Monica and provided a major path for westward immigration. It was made famous in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and immortalised in the 1946 song “Get Your Kicks on Route 66” and movies such as Easy Rider and Thelma & Louise. It also inspired the famous song by the same name, written in the 1946 by Bobby Troup and covered by everyone from Nat King Cole and Chuck Berry, to Depeche Mode and the definitive version (Editor’s opinion) by The Rolling Stones.

The interstate highway system made it obsolete and Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985. You’d have to be a fanatic and expert map reader to follow its exact path, since parts of it are just gravel and others finish in dead ends.

However, what now appears on maps as Historic Route 66 stays close to the spirit of the original and still offers a huge dollop of adventurous escapism. You’ll find yourself surrounded by Americana, from gas stations to milk bars and motels, as if you’ve strayed into a Lee Child novel. You’ll be joined by plenty of American dreamers on the road both historical and present – silver prospectors, outdoor adventurers, motorcyclists, artists, bohemians, grey nomads and alien-spotters.

Albuquerque in New Mexico is a good starting point for the journey westwards.

Although it’s already two-thirds along Route 66 from Chicago, few travellers will want to endure the flat plains of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Head west from Albuquerque and you’re soon surrounded by beautiful mountains and Native American reservations.

As you pass into Arizona the road is surrounded by weird and wonderful mesas and buttes, then the startling red and purple of the aptly named Painted Desert. It’s worth detouring slightly off Route 66 to Petrified Forest, formed from ancient wood fossilised into quartz. The toppled trees lie scattered about the landscape like the giant vertebrae of some vast prehistoric creature, mottled in red, orange and ochre. Some are so well preserved you can count the rings.

Further west on Route 66, Meteor Crater is the size of 20 soccer fields and deep enough to hide a 60-storey apartment block. It can be viewed from a tiny platform hanging out over its rim. 

Because the topology of the crater closely resembles that of the moon, it was used by NASA for training Apollo mission astronauts.

This is what Route 66 is all about – surprises on a colossal scale, especially during that one sublime hour before sunset when the desert colours emerge in orange and amber, painted onto vast rock formations. The road can sometimes seem endless, hogged by trans-continental trucks and studded with doleful signs (“Last dinner for 85 miles!”), but you stop complaining when you swing onto a sidetrack among rose-red cliffs and teetering rock columns.

For the most part, townships along the way offer little beyond fast food outlets, petrol stations and motels all kitted out with the same floral bedspreads and clashing curtains. 

Sometimes, though, you come across gems such as the 1960s-style Goldies Route 66 Diner in Williams, where Kona coffee jugs warm on the counter, fans whirl overhead and the walls are hung with vintage photos of life on the road. 

Williams is the jumping-off point for Grand Canyon, an hour’s drive north of Route 66. Continue westwards however, and you’re into California and the Mojave Desert. Historically, this was the most dreaded part of Route 66, but it presents little problem now except for the blinding heat, and is stunningly beautiful. The ‘singing’ Kelso sand dunes and Teutonia’s Joshua trees are magnificent.

Just before Ludlow the road is very wild, crossing lava fields and gullies. Beyond, Route 66 crosses the infamous San Andreas Fault and heads into San Bernardino, where you’ll pass a museum at an intersection that marks the spot of the world’s first McDonald’s.

You’ll probably feel you’ve finished Route 66 after this, since urbanisation starts to take over, although the road actually continues right through Los Angeles, passing through East Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

Follow Santa Monica Boulevard towards the ocean and finish at Santa Monica Pier, whose Ferris wheel, aquarium and rollercoaster will give you an odd feeling of déjà vu thanks to their appearance in many movie scenes. Where America ends and the Pacific Ocean begins, you’ll see a plaque to Route 66 that dedicates it to Will Rogers, the legendary cowboy actor. You might feel a bit like a cowboy yourself – with Route 66 successfully negotiated, you can drive off into the sunset feeling like a hero.