Iconic Highway Undergoing Renaissance As Americans Learn To Love The Road

By Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0

America’s most iconic highway is making a comeback.

After the completion of the Interstate Highway System, Route 66 – stretching from Chicago to Santa Monica, California – fell into disrepair and disuse. It was finally decommissioned in 1985.

By Billy Hathorn – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Stop the censors, sign up to get today's top stories delivered right to your inbox

Email Address:

Success!

Americans wanted to travel faster, smoother, easier.

Hundreds of towns, thousands of businesses, and millions of people relied on the 2,500-mile road, and it became the main thoroughfare for Americans looking for a better life out west.

But while Route 66 faded into American history, pop culture wouldn’t let go.

So now, the historic highway is undergoing a renaissance of sorts, with Americans re-discovering the joy of small-town America and the open road.

By Kellie Thorne

But it’s not just Americans. Foreigners – many of whom live in congested, crowded cities – are becoming the new travelers on Route 66.

“Foreigners come to travel the road because it gives them a chance to experience America before we became generic,” said Michael Wallis, a historian and author of “Route 66: The Mother Road.”

By Georgia D. Griffiths

“It’s still the road of adventure because nothing on Route 66 is predictable,” he added. “I often say, ‘You know what you are going to get at McDonald’s … but if you are on an old two-lane such as Route 66, you could go into a cafe, a greasy spoon, a pie place, a diner and you don’t know what you’re going to get.'”

http://www.byways.org

Wallis said the fastest growing groups of tourists on Route 66 are Chinese and Brazilians, as well as Europeans drawn by the idea of the open space and the “road trip of a lifetime.”

By Christian Beiwinkel

“I have clients in their 20s and 70s who are fascinated by this road and everyone is looking for convertible Mustangs and Harley Davidsons to experience it,” said Zsolt Nagy, who twice a year organizes Route 66 road trips that cost up to $8,000 per person.