Choosing which of the eight states along Route 66 is the best seems uncharitable, kind of like choosing a favorite child. But hell, I might as well admit it. Arizona is my favorite. Part of that is due to the landscape, where nature reigns supreme as it changes from pine forest to grasslands to painted deserts to mountains. It’s also because it passes through some cool towns–Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, Seligman, and yes, even Oatman with its corny Wild West shows. But mostly, I love Route 66 in Arizona for the drive.
Arizona has 250 miles of Route 66 that are drivable (though some of the historic road merges onto I-40), including what I consider the best joyride along the entire Mother Road: 158 miles of nothing but you and the open road. In fact, that stretch is now one of my happy places, the place my mind wanders to when I want to escape the present.
Best of all, Route 66 signage is well posted in Arizona, a welcome relief after we muddled our way through Texas and New Mexico. For information on Route 66 in other states, see my blogs Best Stops on Route 66 in Illinois; Route 66 through Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma; and Route 66 Highlights: Secrets of Texas and New Mexico. As for California, I’m working on it.
A short history of Route 66
Route 66 officially opened in 1926 as one of our first numbered U.S. highways, making it 100 years old in 2026. Its 2,448 miles was the optimal way to drive from Chicago to Los Angeles, passing through eight states and three time zones along the way. By the ‘50s and ‘60s, families were loading station wagons for road-trip vacations, where they encountered plenty of billboards, outsized advertisements, natural wonders, and plenty of kitsch hoping to grab their attention for a meal, amusement, or a place to stay. Service stations could hardly keep up with the gas, flat tires, and maintenance travelers required.
But Route 66 was never static. It was always changing, eliminating sharp turns and bypassing towns that grew too large and congested. Every new alignment brought convulsions to towns suddenly cut off from motorists but offered new opportunities to businesses on the updated route.
And then Route 66 essentially died, killed by faster four-lane interstates that skirted small towns entirely and brought disaster to all the businesses that had provided gas, meals, rooms, and amusement all those years. In 1985, Route 66 was officially decommissioned, and the last Route 66 highway signs were taken down. A steady stream of cars in towns like Seligman AZ suddenly slowed to a trickle. Some places dried up into ghost towns.
The rebirth of Route 66
But people who remembered Route 66 found its pull irresistible. They read John Steinbeck’s 1939 “The Grapes of Wrath” or saw the movie of the same name, which memorialized victims of the Dust Bowl and Depression who drove west to California in search of a better life. Steinbeck called Route 66 the “Mother Road.” They listened to “Get Your Kicks on Route 66,” composed in 1946 by Bobby Troup and performed by entertainers from Nat King Cole and Chuck Berry to the Rolling Stones. In the 1960s they watched Route 66 on TV, which followed the antics of two attractive guys driving around the country in a Corvette convertible. The 2006 animated movie Cars introduced Route 66 to a whole new generation.
And so the curious kept coming. Angel Delgadillo, a barber in Seligman, worked tirelessly with others to convince the state of Arizona to designate Route 66 an Historic Highway. Thanks to him and others, the Mother Road survives as a drive-through history lesson, with more vestiges of Americana and our nation’s past than any long road trip in America.
What I love most is the nostalgia Route 66 inspires, the way it takes me back to memories of childhood vacations and leads me through unassuming small towns I’d otherwise miss. Is it any wonder I always meet international visitors, who come to our country expressly for Route 66? It’s an unparalleled slice of American life as you journey westward and experience changing landscapes from woods to fields to deserts, eat different foods from pizza to barbecue to Mexican, and listen to music starting with jazz and sliding into country. It really is the Main Street of America.
Nature reigns supreme along Route 66 in Arizona
It’s not hard to fall in love with Arizona, nicknamed the Grand Canyon State. Route 66 in Arizona is a visual feast for the eyes: red earth and blue skies, the colored bands of the Painted Desert, and the deep green of junipers and pine-forested mountains, not to mention neon signs and quirky curio shops. As in New Mexico, Route 66 travels through Navajo country. The railroad is your constant companion. And although Route 66 doesn’t take in the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and Williams have long served as gateways to our most famous national park.
In other words, Route 66 in Arizona does not compel you to jump out of your car seemingly every few minutes for a gander at yet another restored service station or classic diner, as in Illinois. Rather, with its long vistas and empty roads, Route 66 in Arizona is for dreamers.
Route 66 east of Flagstaff
Twenty miles beyond the Arizona-New Mexico border, in Sanders at exit 339 and U.S. Route 191, is the R.B. Burnham & Company Trading Post. This isn’t the usual trading post you see along Route 66 selling tourist-driven Indian curios. Rather, it’s the real deal, a family business that’s had a symbiotic relationship with Native Americans for five generations. Although the front space is a grocery/convenience store catering to locals, the real treasures are in the back, beyond the vault, where there’s a large assortment of rugs, weaving, blankets, baskets, jewelry, and yarn spun specifically for Navajo weaving. Stop here only if you’re intent on purchasing.
“This is how we acquire things,” Bruce Burnham explains during my visit when an artist comes in with trays of handmade jewelry to sell. “We are here not for white people but for locals.”
Burnham, an Anglo who was born on a reservation and grew up in the trading post business, is married to a Navajo; their daughter has joined the family business. Although their business is to buy, sell, and trade, today their focus is auctions and exhibits, where artisans can expect a fair price. (Photo: Bruce and his wife Virginia).
Petrified Forest National Park
Otherwise, the first major stop on Route 66 in eastern Arizona is the Petrified Forest National Park, home to mesas, buttes and badlands. Am I the first adult embarrassed to find out I would not be walking amidst an actual petrified forest? To commemorate my ignorance, I bought a beautiful piece of petrified wood as a souvenir at the gift shop.
The national park also offers the chance to wander the Painted Desert and view 800-year-old ancestral Puebloan homes and petroglyphs.
Petrified Forest National Park is the only National Park in the country with a portion of Historic Route 66 within its boundaries. This stretch, open from 1926 to 1958, was the primary way millions of travelers experienced the petrified forest and painted desert.
Kitsch along Route 66
Early dinosaurs also roamed in nearby Holbrook, but today the giants are sedentary, clustered mostly around the Rainbow Rock Shop.
Perhaps more interesting, in Holbrook you can also spend the night in a teepee. The Wigwam Motel, built in the 1950s and still under the same family management, starred in the Pixie movie Cars as the “Cozy Cone.” Although there used to be seven wigwam villages around the country, only three remain. We delayed our wigwam experience for the one in San Bernardino.
If you were driving along Route 66 in the ‘50s and ‘60s, you might have been intrigued by giant signs proclaiming “Here It Is,” along with mileage counts to whatever the hell “It” was. The Jack Rabbit Trading Post, open since 1949, remains one of Arizona’s best-known roadside attractions.
Winslow
Next up is Winslow. I can’t even think about this town’s name without the earworm, “Standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona,”playing in my mind from The Eagles song “Take It Easy.” Winslow pays tribute to the song that put it on the map with Standin’ On the Corner Park, which provides photo ops with a statues of Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey and murals.
But we were excited to reach Winslow mostly for La Pousada, where we bedded down for the night. The imposing National Historic Landmark was the last and most elegant of the great Fred Harvey hotels built by Santa Fe Railroad. Guests included pretty much every celebrity who passed through, including Bob Hope, John Wayne, Will Rogers, Jane Russell, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Amelia Earhart, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, the Crown Prince Akihito of Japan, Spencer Tracy, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, Albert Einstein, and, of course, yours truly.
In case you don’t know, Fred Harvey was an entrepreneur who in 1876 started opening restaurants and hotels next to railroad stations. Noting the miserable state of his hung-over male waiters at a Harvey House in Raton NM, he made the momentous decision to hire women instead.
He advertised: “Wanted—young women 18-30 years of age, of good moral character, attractive and intelligent…Wages, $17.50 per month, with room and board. Liberal tips customary. Experience not necessary. Write Fred Harvey, Union Depot, Kansas City, Missouri.” His hospitality empire grew to more than 65 restaurants and a dozen large hotels, due in no small part to his legendary Harvey Girls (I probably would have signed up, too, as a way to get out and see something of the world).
But by the 1950s, people preferred cars over trains, and in 1957, La Pousada closed. Luckily for us, it was saved from demolition in 1997 and renovated so that travelers today can enjoy its laid-back Western motif complete with gardens, historic artifacts, a cool gift shop, and art. My companion and I splurged at the hotel’s Turquoise Room, where I was delighted to see passengers disembark from the Amtrak Southwest Chief just outside on its way between Chicago and Los Angeles.
Continuing west
West of Winslow is another natural wonder, but not of earth’s making. About 50,000 years ago, a gigantic iron-nickel meteor hurtling 26,000 miles per hour and weighing several hundred thousand pounds crash landed with a force 150 times greater than an atomic bomb.
But it took a while to figure that out. Some thought the crater was due to volcanic activity, until an engineer came in 1902 and spent the next 26 years trying to corroborate what he was sure was a massive meteor. What he didn’t know was that the meteorite had vaporized, melted and disintegrated on impact. The crater, however, equivalent to a 60-story building and big enough to accommodate 20 football fields, remains and was eventually confirmed to be the result of a meteor. The site so closely resembles the moon, NASA astronauts train here, including those who were on Apollo missions to the moon.
You’ll learn all this and more at the Meteor Crater & Barringer Space Museum, which offers extensive exhibits, a 15-minute 4D immersive video experience, lookout points and guided tours along the rim.
Our next stop was what had once been the Twin Arrows Trading Post. I’d read that the only thing remaining were two 25-foot arrows pointing into the ground, erected as a gimmick to get people into the namesakes’ gas station, gift shop, and diner. Now only one sad arrow remains, a commentary, perhaps, on the loss of indigenous culture after white settlers came. It seems fitting, therefore, to note that at the nearby Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort, the arrows are pointed upward as visitors stop to contribute to the local economy.
Flagstaff
Located about halfway between New Mexico and California, Flagstaff is the largest city along Route 66 in Arizona. But that doesn’t mean it’s big. With about 77,500 residents, this hip mountain town appeals to its student population and tourists with trendy boutiques, coffee shops, breweries, a ski resort, and unlimited outdoor opportunities.
At 7,000 feet and nestled in the world’s largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest, Flagstaff is the only dark-sky city on the Mother Road. It’s also a popular base for visiting eight national parks and monuments within a two-hour drive, including Grand Canyon National Park, Walnut Canyon National Monument, Wupatki National Monument, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, and Montezuma Well National Monument, not to mention Navajo Nation Tribal Parks, the San Francisco Peaks, national forests, and numerous state parks. It is, in other words, an outdoor enthusiast’s dream.
We decided to stay downtown in the historic Hotel Monte Vista, which opened just one year after the birth of Route 66. In a nod to accommodations back in the day, its rooms do not have such modern conveniences as a fridge, microwave, or coffee machine. Many famous celebrities have stayed here; it’s also known for its resident ghosts and spirits (we didn’t encounter any).
Other overnight choices include the nearby Weatherford, serving guests since 1897, and the Americana Motor Hotel, originally built in 1962 (Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and the rest of the Easy Rider crew stayed here during filming). This updated version offers a year-round heated outdoor pool and retro, fun furnishings in the spirit of the Mother Road.
Heading out of town on Route 66, we stopped at Galaxy Diner, which offers breakfast all day in addition to such mainstays as burgers, meatloaf, pot roast, and liver and onions. It’s located in a 1955 building, with photos of movie stars covering its walls.
Route 66 west of Flagstaff
Williams
You’ll drive through Kaibab National Forest to reach Williams, population about 3,400, where you’ll want to spend a few hours absorbing its independent spirit and Old West vibe. Once home to timber mills and sheep and cattle ranchers, it developed a reputation as a rough and rowdy town, with the requisite brothels, saloons, gambling halls, and opium dens.
Stop by the Williams Visitor Center, located in the old freight depot, to pick up brochures and maps and learn about the town’s history and nearby Kaibab National Forest. Then take a stroll through its atmospheric downtown, perhaps the best urban stretch of Route 66 in Arizona and lined with brick buildings from the late 19th century housing souvenir shops, cafes, and diners.
Route 66 was so integral to the town’s business, it fiercely resisted Interstate I-40 as long as it could, winning the honors of becoming the last town on the Mother Road by-passed by an interstate. That fateful day, October 13, 1984, brought Bobby Troup to town to perform his famous Route 66 song.
Williams, surrounded by forests, upstages Flagstaff as a gateway to the Grand Canyon with its Grand Canyon Railway & Hotel. Offering tourists the chance to view the Grand Canyon from its south rim since 1901, the rail excursion offers day trips, packages that include hotel stays, and select runs via steam locomotive and the Polar Express.
My favorite stretch of Route 66
And now for the fun part. You’ll have to take I-40 from Williams until exit 139, but then you’ll find yourself embarking on the most glorious historic stretch of Route 66, 158 miles all the way to the California border. It starts out fairly flat through grasslands and rolling hills, the trees becoming smaller and scruffier.
Soon, though, you’ll find yourself in Seligman, a village of a few hundred souls that nonetheless has a four-lane Route 66 right through the middle of it to accommodate tour buses and a scattering of businesses.
Seligman
Seligman is known as the Birthplace of Historic Route 66, due to the efforts of Angel Delgadillo. He was born here in 1927 and became a tireless crusader to resurrect the Mother Road after I-40 devastated his hometown, reducing traffic from 9,000 cars a day to a mere trickle. In 1987, the State of Arizona designated the stretch from Seligman west to Kingman the “Historic Route 66.” The Pixar movie Cars based its Radio Springs on Seligman.
You can visit his former barber shop, now called Angel and Vilma Delgadillo’s Original Route 66 Gift Shop, with memorabilia, souvenirs, and displays paying tribute to Angel. You might also encounter Mirna Delgadillo, daughter of Angel and Vilma, who grew up here, left after high school to “get out of Dodge” and see what the world looked like, and then came back to help her parents in 1998.
“Mom and Dad worked seven days a week 24 hours a day,” she tells me. “No one would be celebrating Route 66 without my dad. Route 66 is not a fad, it’s here to stay and is the best of what our country has to offer.”
She says the biggest change she’s noticed over the years is the number of foreign visitors.
“People come from all over the world,” she says. “China, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, Russia. Every inch of the world wants to visit Route 66.”
The biggest annual draw is the Route 66 Fun Run, a rally of more than 800 classic and antique vehicles touring 140 miles from Seligman to Toprock/Golden Shores the beginning of May.
On your way west out of town you’ll pass The Roadkill Café, which claims “You kill it, we grill it” with such delectables as the Splatter Platter and Fender Tenders on its menu (don’t worry, it’s all in fun), and the Historic Route 66 Motel.
And then it’s the open road. And Burma Shave signs.
I didn’t know anything about Burma Shave signs until I began traveling Route 66. Begun as an advertising ploy, the signs became a national pastime as they appeared along roads and espoused both the shaving cream business and public safety.
“You can drive a mile a minute,” I read on one sign. The next one admonishes, “But there is no future in it.”
After skirting past the south end of the Hualapai Indian Reservation, the landscape becomes hillier, with rock formations and buttes, and Route 66 becomes curvier instead of dead straight as it goes mostly through valleys. Stop at Hackberry General Store to stretch your legs.
Kingman
You’ll want to spend part of a day or maybe even the night in Kingman, population about 36,000. It claims to have the longest remaining preserved stretch of Route 66 (though it seems I’ve heard that before). Clark Gable and Carole Lombard got married here. You can cruise your car through the Route 66 Drive-Thru Shield to memorialize your trip (below, to the right). And this is where I spotted my first palm trees on the trip.
But mostly you’ll want to spend time in the former powerhouse, now the Kingman Visitor Center and the Arizona Route 66 Museum, one of the better museums commemorating the Mother Road (the other ones I like are in Pontiac IL and Clinton OK). Here you’ll learn about the dust Bowl and Great Depression that drove desperate families west (and what it was like for the children of those families).
You’ll read Burma Shave signs, see a replica diner, garage and general store, and view a collection of electric vehicles like a 1983 Porsche and a 2008 Tesla. A one-hour movie covers Route 66 history, Angel Delgadillo and the preservation of Route 66, and towns along the Mother Road in Arizona.
I especially like the section on Angel, an interactive multimedia display that lets you ask the “Guardian Angel of Route 66” questions, with his AI responses in real time. I asked what he would say to future generations, “People need to think about themselves in a manner they can succeed, like I succeeded. My work on Route 66 is an example. Stop talking about it and go out and do it.” Amen.
If you’d like to spend the night, probably the coolest place to stay is at Tin Can Alley on 66, with four refurbished vintage Airstreams located across from the Kingman Visitor Center.
Otherwise, we stayed at El Travatore, lured by its promise of the world’s longest Route 66 map. That turned out to be a gimmick, with murals simply spread along the façade of the motel in a haphazard fashion (of course I had to take a picture of the mural representing Kansas).
Otherwise, the rooms are modest but adequate, with themed rooms named after famous people (we stayed in the Marilyn Monroe room). Owner Sam Frisher is a font of local lore and claimed that Bob Hope, Elvis Presley, and even the Three Stooges were former guests of the motel, which opened as a service station in 1937 and added a tourist court in 1939. One of the first things he said to us when we entered his check-in office was “No smoking, drink as much as possible.”
Sam suggested we eat dinner at the nearby Dambar & Steakhouse. A gas station in the 1950s and a bar in the 1960s, it reputedly got its name when a construction worker wanted to buy it and his wife called it that “damn bar.”
Hungry again the next morning despite eating enough for a cowboy, we headed to Mr. D’z, famous for its breakfasts served on seriously big platters and homemade root beer, burgers, and hotdogs.
The last stretch of Route 66 in Arizona
About 20 miles west of Kingman is the Cool Springs Gift Shop, once the site of a gas station, restaurant, and stone cabins beginning in the 1920s. It served as an important stop before heading up the steep slopes and hairpin curves of the Black Mountains and is still worth visiting.
And then it’s nothing but heart-stopping switchbacks, steep grades, and drop-offs, not to mention wild burros on the road, as old Route 66 winds up and over Sitgreaves Pass (elevation 3,550 ft). In fact, this stretch with its 191 curves, turns and switchbacks is probably the most challenging section along Route 66.
We stopped at a makeshift memorial, filled with crosses and keepsakes marking the departed. Thank goodness the woman working at Cool Springs had informed us that these were not tributes to people who had died on the Oatman Highway. Rather, they were left by travelers wishing to memorialize their loved ones. You might want to come prepared with a tribute of your own.
Then, finally, we found ourselves in Oatman, founded in 1863 as a mining town and named after Olive Oatman, kidnapped by the Apache, sold to Mojave Indians, and rescued here. After becoming a virtual ghost town following the demise of Route 66, Oatman has worked itself into popular lore as a dusty, gun-slinging Wild West town, with historic buildings and storefronts that indeed look like a movie set. In fact, as soon as we pulled in, we were stopped going any farther by a shootout and burros looking for a handout.
The most famous building in town is the 1902 Oatman Hotel, the oldest two-story adobe building in the county and now a restaurant, bar, and gift shop. Head upstairs for a peek at the very simple room where honeymooners Clark Gable and Carol Lombard slept.
After Oatman we were surprised to see campers and RVs parked alongside Route 66 and spread among the hills as we descended into the desert. Free dispersed camping is allowed here for up to 14 days. Because we had neither an RV nor camper, we headed farther down to Toprock, our last town before hitting California.
For more on Route 66, see my blogs on Route 66 in Illinois, Route 66 through Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma, and Secrets of Route 66 through Texas and Arizona.
