TIPS FOR MAKING ROUTE 66 (AND NOT SHIT)

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To all of us who like to travel, and especially to those who are passionate about doing it on 4 (or two) wheels, something very strange happens to us with Route 66. That feeling of not being able to die without going through Mother Road, without stepping on its asphalt, without knowing its mythical places, without breakfast in a typical cafeteria with uncomfortable sofas and dirty windows. In short, the feeling of returning to the past for two weeks to realize from the window of a car that times should not have changed so much.

In June we toured one of the most famous roads in the world: Route 66! And here we come with our recommendations. We are going to tell you some how many tips to do Route 66, without shitting it, you know!

One of the most important expenses is the car rental, and not only do you have to calculate the daily price, but you will also have to pay a rate (one way) for returning it to an office different from where you removed it. The prices would be:

Daily rent: $ 35
One way rate: $ 500-1,000
Expand coverage: $ 5-10 per day.
TOTAL 14-day rental cost: approximately $ 1,200.

Renting with Budget, the daily rent is cheaper, but the One Way rate is more expensive

With Thrifty the rent is more expensive but the One Way rate is only $ 500

Not all companies charge the same for the One Way rate, for example in Budget, Europcar or Avis is $ 1,000, in Alamo, Thrifty, Dollar or Hertz they are over $ 500-700. So you should spend a few minutes comparing each one and see which one is the cheapest.

Compare the companies of car rental and get the best price with AutoEurope

We were able to fulfill the dream of doing Routes 66 in a motorhome thanks to a relocation offer (we will explain more below). But if you are not lucky enough to find one of these offers that suits your dates, we always recommend use some search engine like Motorhome Republic to get the best prices on motorhome rental.

As you can see, the price can be very competitive!

We in our search did not find companies that do not apply this rate so much, but we discovered soon An alternative: relocation!

Soon we will tell you in detail what it is, but for now we anticipate that we have saved a lot of money doing it and we could travel the caravan route (which also made us save hundreds of dollars on accommodation!).

Relocation basically involves picking up a car (or caravan) in one place and returning it in another. There are relocations that cost from $ 1 a day, although we do not find such a good offer ... we pay $ 30 a day for a great caravan, not bad if you think that in addition to saving money on accommodation, we save the one way rate.

Why does it come out so cheap? Because they need to move these cars from one office to another or directly from the factory, as happened to us, so you do the work of transporter and save them money.

You may search relocations on the Imoova website

By the way, those who say that doing Route 66 in a caravan is not a good idea ... is that they have not tried it! Ok, you will not sleep in motels (but you will see them) and you will also be able to live such unusual experiences as spending the night (free) in an Indian casino XD

There are many travelers who travel Route 66 in one Harley davidson. It has to be an unforgettable experience but for us it is not the best option (we find it quite expensive and somewhat uncomfortable ... especially if it rains!).

There are agencies that rent motorcycles and make the tour in a group, with an assistance van and a guide that is making its way. It doesn't give much freedom and the price is quite expensive, so do it yourself.

Gasoline in the United States is very cheap (I wish I had that price in Spain too), but you can always save ... so we recommend two things:

Download an APP to check the gas stations with better prices, we use TankWallet
And study this page a bit where you can see how much the gas station costs in the different states.

By the way, the city with the cheapest gasoline is Tulsa, the capital of oil (at $ 1.93 a gallon), and the area where we found it most expensive was between Needles and Barstow, in the Mojave Desert (we got to see it at $ 4 a gallon).

The route starts in Chicago and ends in Los Angeles. You can travel from one side or the other, although it is always cooler to do it in the original direction. Whatever you should do is arrive in one city and leave from the other ... it doesn't make much sense to buy a round trip flight to Chicago or Los Angeles! It's a basic tip, we know it, but we know you pitcher's soul! With the emotion you can screw it (I know people who wanted to go to Las Palmas and ended up in Palma de Mallorca XD).

To find flights that combine different cities is very simple, in search engines there is an option of “multi-destination flights“, Different lines will be activated to add flights and then perform the search normally. The reservation will be only one for both flights. Prices tend to be more expensive than round trip to the same city, but sometimes the difference is not so much.

Find the cheapest flight with the Skyscanner online comparator

Traveling "the Mother Road" without knowing its history would be a shame ... and since we do not want this to happen we have prepared an article where we tell you how he was born, died and resurfaced.

We had read that the best times are spring and fall, although we toured it at the beginning / mid-June and we found super nice weather and temperature. We would say that the best time would be May and June, July and August we believe it can be too hot in some areas of the center of the country. September can also be a good time.

If you only have 7 days of time ... do not make Route 66 whole! It would be a shame not to be able to dedicate the time you deserve (and crazy at the level of km!). The minimum time we recommend are 15 days, although they can be more ... it is not a bad idea either: you can go quieter, know more places and make more detours.

If you have little time you can do a section of the Route, the most famous is the one that goes from Los Angeles to Kingman and Flagstaff, and then deviates to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas).

If you have time, a good idea is to take an occasional excursion… you can turn off to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas or discover lesser-known places like Tent Rock (near Santa Fe), or spend an entire day visiting Breaking Bad in Albuquerque. Even if you always keep in mind the weather ... the distances in the United States are enormous!

If the night is dark and has horrors, the route is long and houses very beautiful things.

If you travel by car and in high season or if you want to sleep in one of the legendary motels on Route 66, the ideal is book in advance. But if you can afford it: improvise, cool more! Sometimes the plans are not fulfilled and Route 66 has a few places that can catch you and who knows, the same thing you wanted to get to a point Y but the point X you liked so much that you prefer to stay there ...

Find the cheapest accommodation on Booking.com

If you travel in caravan You can stay in one of the many campsites or RV parks along the Route, but these are paid (calculates about $ 20-30 per night). If you want to find Free places to park and spend the night you should focus on other more rare places ... 😉

- One of the most typical places to spend the night free is the Wallmart parking, the most famous supermarket in the USA. It doesn't sound very romantic, we know it, but it's free, there is food nearby and you can almost always catch XD wifi. It never failed us, except in Flagstaff.

- Another place like that is the Travel Center from the gas stations, where you can live an authentic America that never comes out in the guides (and which are also VERY comfortable, with laundry service and many more things). We throw them on occasion and in the end it is less sinister than it seems, you can even make friends with truckers who watch an NBA game.

- We also had to spend some night in theTourist Information Center, like that of Amarillo. Some let them spend the night in their parking lots.

- And the ones we will remember the most will be the car parks of indian casinos of road, in the states of Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

- But not all are parkings, there are many options to stay for free and in really nice places, such as areas near lakes, areas of free camping, etc.

The best thing is that you download an App like wikicamps USA or visit the Freecampsites.net page

Something that cherished us a little (a lot) was the subject of get lost on local roads in the United States ... we already saw each other on the border of Mexico or escaping from a bear in Alaska. We were also very worried not follow the original route, something that in the end did not turn out to be so serious.

Let's go in parts: there is no original road that corresponds to the old Route 66 and that runs continuously, but has divided into sections, some took advantage to build on the new highways, others have been lost and others if they can travel. Some of these are of a few kilometers and there are others much longer.

So, How to follow the original route of Route 66? The important thing is to prepare the route day by day and mark the places of interest through which it will pass, which will be on the old road. Then join these points and voila!

But, How do we know what the important points are? Easy, there are lots of Applications dedicated to Route 66 that show all the places, their locations and description with practical information. Some are:

Route 66 Scavenger Hunt, we saw in several blogs that it is the best, but it never worked well, grrrrr.
Route 66: Ultimate guide, the one we use and between it and google maps we were “understanding” how to survive the Route…

The trick is not to get overwhelmed, make a plan of the day with all the things to see and do, accept that you are going to get lost and that nothing happens (besides returning to the Route is as easy as escaping from it).

And you're in luck since you won't have to look for much information: in this article (coming soon) we give you a few tricks to get used quickly to driving in the United States.

We always recommend using a card when traveling. Both for payments and to get money. It is not very cool to carry large amounts of cash on top, let alone having to change it in destinations whose currency is not €. But watch out for commissions! Both for a trip to the United States and for any foreign country, it is advisable to carry a special card, here we tell you the solutions to have money abroad.

We have decided to carry both the Bnext card and the N26 card on all trips. Both are free, we take two each to extend limits, and allow us to go well covered and save good money in commissions. Traveler word.

The "bible" of the Route: EZ66 Guide for travelers, is the companion of the vast majority of "routers", but if you do not want to do with it then, nothing happens. We were able to travel the route without it, more than anything because we didn't want to carry more weight. What we do advise you to have is a good map and some APP with the things to see and do.

A trip along the Route is not the same without eating in some of its mythical restaurants! Soon we will publish a post that speaks in detail about them, but for now point these names: Lucille's Roadhouse, Big Texan Ranch, Peggy Sue YMr D'z Route 66.

The United States has many things to be proud of, but public health is not one of them. If you come here on a trip it is essential that you do it with good medical insurance. We already tell you how to choose the best travel insurance.

When we started planning the route we found several interesting pages and a few blogs that helped us, here we leave you a few, check them out!