Route 66 Still Explains America Better Than Any History Book

On 11 November 2026, Route 66 turns 100 years old. Towns from Illinois to California have spent the whole year celebrating with car parades, festivals and new murals. Some people might ask why anyone would make such a fuss over an old road that was officially removed from the US highway system back in 1985.

My answer is simple. If you want to understand America, skip the history textbook and drive Route 66. No other single place tells the country’s story as honestly.

A Road Built on Hope

Route 66 was created in 1926 to link Chicago with Los Angeles, eventually ending at the Santa Monica pier. It ran for roughly 2,400 miles, or close to 4,000 kilometres, through eight states. Instead of taking the shortest route, it connected small towns, farms and main streets that had been isolated for years.

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, families from Oklahoma, Texas and nearby states loaded their belongings onto old trucks and drove west on this road looking for work in California. John Steinbeck called it the “Mother Road” in The Grapes of Wrath. For these families, Route 66 was not a fun road trip. It was a road of survival.

That alone teaches more about the American idea of moving on, starting again and chasing opportunity than any chapter on economics.

The Birth of the Road Trip

After the Second World War, the mood changed. Soldiers came home, the economy boomed and families bought cars. Route 66 became the road of holidays and freedom. Diners, motels with neon signs, gas stations and quirky roadside attractions sprang up everywhere to catch passing travellers.

This is where much of American car culture and pop culture was born: the fast-food stop, the motel, the giant roadside statues, the song “Get Your Kicks on Route 66”. When people around the world imagine an American road trip, they are usually imagining this road.

The Lesson of Decline

Then came the interstate highways. From the 1950s onwards, faster, straighter roads bypassed many Route 66 towns. Travellers stopped driving through main streets. Businesses closed, towns emptied, and the old highway was officially decommissioned in 1985.

This part of the story is just as important. Driving Route 66 today, you pass ghost towns, empty gas stations and fading motel signs next to thriving restored diners. It shows how quickly progress can leave people behind, a lesson that feels very relevant in an age of automation and changing jobs.

The Comeback

What I admire most is that local people refused to let the road die. Associations in each state fought to preserve the old route, put up signs and restore historic buildings. Towns like Seligman in Arizona and Pontiac in Illinois turned nostalgia into tourism. Today, travellers from Europe, Japan, Australia and increasingly India come specifically to drive it.

The centennial celebrations this year, from the official kickoff in Springfield, Missouri, to festivals across Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona and California, show how much the road still means to Americans.

What It Shows You

Drive it from start to finish and you see America in layers. Big-city Chicago. The farmland of Illinois and Missouri. The Native American lands and deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. The Grand Canyon not far off the route. Finally, the Pacific Ocean in California. You meet farmers, bikers, retired couples and small business owners. You eat at diners where the waitress calls everyone “honey”.

You also see the hard parts: poverty in some towns, the history of displacement of Native American communities, and the long shadow of segregation, when Black travellers needed special guides to find safe places to stay.

Stops I Would Not Miss

• Chicago, Illinois, where the road begins near Grant Park.
• The Gemini Giant in Wilmington, Illinois, a classic roadside statue.
• Tulsa and Oklahoma City, the heart of this year’s centennial celebrations.
• Seligman, Arizona, a small town that helped start the road’s revival.
• The Santa Monica Pier, California, where the journey ends at the Pacific.

The Other View

Critics say Route 66 is now mostly a nostalgia trip, kept alive for tourists, and that it does not reflect modern America of tech companies and big cities. Some stretches are hard to follow, others are gone, and parts can feel like a theme park.

They are not wrong. But I think that is part of the lesson too. America has always mixed real history with myth. Route 66 holds both, side by side.

If you ever get a chance to visit the US with time to spare, rent a car and drive even a part of it. In a few days, you will understand the country better than after years of watching films.