Route 66 & California

Awesome-O

I was thinking of a few weeks in California during the summer and then started looking at maybe driving Route 66 first. Has anyone done this? Would you recommend it? How many people would be minimum needed to share the driving and how long would you recommend spending on the drive from Chicago?
Also where in California is worthwhile? I didn't realise what a big place it was until I started looking at travel brouchures

christeb

Done it with my buddy last Sept, took us 2 weeks starting in Chicago. All in all the driving took 8 days, we spent 3 nights in Vegas and 4 nights in LA. It was an unbelievable trip, really once in a lifetime type stuff. The people you meet are great, we rushed through most of the first 5 states (IL, MO; TX, KN OH), not too much to see in them, NM and AZ are where it starts to get really interesting. We took the short route through NM which meant we missed out on Santa Fe, kinda regret that as its supposed to be amazing. Expensive in general, although we done lots while we were there (3 baseball games, Arcade Fire Concert - in the Hollywood Bowl!!!, and the Bealtes Love Show in Vegas). We also didn't skimp on the accomodation in most places, cost close to €4k each in the end. You have toi get a convertible too, only way to cruise!!! On our schedule we were driving for 7-8 hours per day, make sure at least 2 of you can do the driving as the days are pretty tough, although the roads are quiet if you stay off the interstate...
PM if you need more info, I'm rambling!

upmeath

Did New York-St. Louis-San Diego last August with 4 friends. We were planning on doing the entirety of 66 from Chicago to LA but we were aiming to get to San Diego in 7 days and bad traffic in Indiana (the I-70 came to a halt for the best part of 6 hours due to a crash) meant we had to cut Chicago out of our plans and instead made tracks from Indianapolis to St. Louis where we started on 66.

I'd have to disagree strongly with the last poster, Illinois was amazing, we cut across the south of the state to get from Indianapolis to St. Louis so we weren't on 66 but it's a beautiful part of the world.

St. Louis - an undiscovered gem, spent one of the best days of my life there. The Mississippi, the Gateway Arch, few people in this country will be able to tell you where STL is, and I have to say it's probably in my top 10 cities I've ever visited.

I accept Missouri is pretty muck after St. Louis, but the small towns of Oklahoma are a must-see, I'd have to recommend Stroud personally, really nice locals. It's not a Bible belt town as such, but we were there on a Saturday and the entire town just shut down with the exception of the supermarket and a liquor store. Really surreal seeing that in the States when we're all much more familiar with images of Manhattan and LA. OK City and Amarillo are no different, we found one restaurant open in OKC on a Sunday, and Amarillo was completely shut down with the exception of the Big Texan (your 72oz steak is free if you eat it in under an hour!)

I'm making a video based on the experience at the minute, it should be on youtube in the morning, 30 minutes long, have a look!

tags: irish san diego j1 2007 route 66 roadtrip

upmeath

OK that video just went live, have a look at our U.S. hippy van experience here

Awesome-O

that's great thanks, got some good tips for where to spend time.my flashplayer isn't working but i'll look up the video when it is, would be interesting to see.
did you book accomodation as you went along or before you went over? i'm thinking it's best to book as we go along because then we can decide how long we want to spend in different places when we get there but i'm wondering during the summer can it be difficult to get somewhere at the last minute?
also did you spend more time on the old route 66 or on the new highway?