Chicago to LA (Route 66)

Hi there everyone, a few pointers and words of advice would be gratefully received with regards to a proposed trip for May / June next year.

Three guys (27,25,24) are looking to drive the route Chicago to LA in approx two weeks (room for change).

The opening plan so far...

Fly in to Chicago, spend two nights there before collecting our hire car and setting out on the road.

Spend 14 nights on the road following the route and making detours along the way with the biggest detour being Las Vegas. We wish to spend a night here.

We plan to make Las Vegas to LA our last leg of driving and hope to achieve this in a day (i'm sure that can be done).

I've estimated the following budget for the entire trip as follows...

Flights - £1500
Chicago and LA hotels - £300
Car Hire - £850
Fuel - £300
Motel / Camping - £600
Food Kitty - £500

Roughly $8250 ($2750 per person)

As previously mentioned this is our opening plan and we've estimated conservatively (in our opinion) therefore, any tips to reduce budget would be grateful.

Also, is 14 nights sufficient time to drive the route comfortably?

Thank you all in advance of your replies!

Welcome to the RoadTrip America Forum!

I think two weeks is sufficient time to cover this distance on old US-66. Keep in mind that the route had many different alignments over the years, and in parts you will not be able to remain on the road - it has either been completely abandoned or paved over with Interstates (such as I-40). That's not to discourage your plan, but just to prepare you.

The rental car cost seems high - about $1750 for two weeks. What type of vehicle are you planning on renting?

For fuel - I am figuring this as 2300 miles, your vehicle getting 20mpg, and fuel at $3.20 a gallon - that's $368 for fuel, so it looks like you are more than set there.

A cursory glance at the other estimates gives the impression you are prepared on those fronts as well, with the possible exception of food costs. You've got about $1000 for 3 people - in 16 days, that averages out to less than $21 each. Though it's not impossible to survive off of that, dinner/supper (different names depending on the area of the country) costs will take most of that.

Las Vegas to Los Angeles can certainly be driven in a day.

Thank you for your swift response to this.

Re the car rental. That certainly seems on the high side. I am doing three weeks in a premium car and even with the one way fees it is less then what you have for two weeks. The other tip is keep checking with the car rental companies, when you book they provide a confirmation without having to provide a credit card. Therefore you can keep checking back and seeing if the price has gone down and simply cancelling earlier booking. We have so far reduced the price of our hire by $800 despite booking the same car at the same company by checking back every few weeks.

Always check the box that you are a non US resident as this seems to decrease the price at many companies.

Good Luck

Ok, nearly 5 months on and the plans are coming together nicely!

Managed to get a Chevrolet Trailblazer (or similar) for £560 / $1100, I've reserved this with National. All I put was my name and e-mail address and it appeared to be sufficient to make the reservation. (Is this normal?)

Flights to be booked shortly, we're prebooking hotels in Chicago, St. Louis, Vegas and Santa Monica.

Another member added to our crew, all's looking good!

Anyone have any tips on anything we might need to know, think about, etc before we leave?

Thanks

Four people in a car is great fun at the start but, let's face it, we all have different habits and have different outlooks on things. We recommend that each of you take the compatibility quiz whilst you're planning the trip so you all have a firm idea what each of you wants to get out of the trip.

Have a good one!

I went to National and plugged in 2 weeks (May 15-29) in a Trailblazer and my quote was $3,111. Quite a difference!! I encourage you double-check on this with National to make sure you don't get hit with a nasty surprise when you get there.

Also, that is without paying the fee for the 24 year old to drive. If you elect to not pay this extra fee for a younger driver, you sure better not let that person drive. If something should happen while that person is driving, it could really come back to bite you.

It also doesn't include the extra insurances, etc. You may not need them but all drivers will want to check with their own auto insurance provider to ensure that your own auto insurance covers rental vehicles. If not, you will need to pick up that extra coverage.

I'm assuming you have done your research about Route 66. If not, this page will be really helpful.

Tim mentioned that your food budget might be a tad low. A good way to save money on this, and still eat well, is to eat out of your cooler.

For some reason, saying that we're UK residents seems to cut the cost immensely! As for the 24 year old, now we have another member, he will not need to drive. So we should be ok on that front.

Good point about the insurance though, i'll make sure the guys look into that.

The food budget isn't really an issue, it was more for us to ascertain a rough budget to save up for.

As for compatability, i'm sure we'll have our moments but the good ones will outweigh the bad ones!

Ok, subject to change (as has already happened) I thought i'd post our proposed itinerary to see what people make of it. Please add any comments you feel may help us. Thanks

Day 1 - Fly to Chicago, two nights here.
Day 3 - Pick car up first thing, head out on the road with the intention of getting to St.Louis.
Day 4 - Stay in Springfield, MO
Day 5 - Stay in Tulsa, OK
Day 6 - Stay in Clinton, OK
Day 7 - Stay in Amarillo, TX
Day 8 - Stay in Santa Rosa, NM
Day 9 - Stay in Albuqerque, NM
Day 10 - Stay in Holbrook, AZ
Day 11 - Stay in Las Vegas for 3 nights (Doing a Grand Canyon tour from here)
Day 14 - Stay in Santa Monica for 3 nights to end our trip.

The driving distances each day seem quite do-able. YOu should have time to sightsee along the way.

What kind of Grand Canyon tour are you doing from there? Are they providing transportation or do you have to drive there? If so, you might want to get a hotel closer to the Grand Canyon before heading onto Vegas. I would suggest Flagstaff, Williams, or staying right in the Grand Canyon area itself.

Do you want any further tips on things to do along the way? Let us know how we can help you further.

Well,

The flights have now been booked, as have the Chicago, Vegas and Los Angeles hotels.

We have compiled a list of potential stops along the way and we will probably look to stick to it as close as possible. However, we are aware that by doing this then we may miss certain "must-see" things enroute.

Therefore, I'd appreciate it if anyone can inform me of any must do things along the way and i'll look to include them in our existing plans.

Thanks

For places to stop, you can't do much better than checking out our Route 66 page! Virtual Route 66 on that page is a real treasure-trove of information but all the links are helpful.

Some of my highlights would be:
Arizona - Tucumcari, Cline's Corner, Albuquerque, Gallup
Arizona- Petrified Forest NP, Holbrook, Winslow, Grand Canyon, Seligman, Kingman, Oatman

Poke around there and come on back with your ideas and let us help you tweak some more!

I read the itenerary and it is very do-able. I suggest that you stay off the interstate and follow old route 66 from chicago to needles, california to see more of americana. You will find that both food (at the mom and pop diners are cheaper and better try to stay at non-chain motels along the way. Most are clean and comfortable and much, much cheaper! in the range to 30 to 40 a night double).
Also i recommend that you not stay at the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Ar. but stay in Flagstaff. You can make the trip from there to the Grand Canyon with ease and then move on to vegas.
The Wigman Motel is only open with the owner feels like opening plus the rooms are not comfortable and are over-priced. Granted they are a novelty to look at.

Have a safe and wonderful journey.
Scotishbob

4 weeks til we leave for Chicago. After having a meeting last night me and my "route buddies" are nearly all set.

We've tweaked our proposed itinerary as follows...

Night 1 - Springfield, IL
2 - Lebanon, MO
3 - Tulsa, OK
4 - Clinton, OK
5 - Amarillo, TX
6 - Albuquerque, NM
7 - Holbrook, AZ
8 - Grand Canyon Village

then onto Vegas for 3 nights and LA for 3 nights before flying home!

Hopefully we'll get to see and do as much as possible using this as a guideline

None of your travel days are extremely long so you should have plenty of time to explore and meander. Enjoy! And come on back after your return to let us know how things went. We love roadtrip reports!

Hi, after picking our car up on Sunday May 25th we hit the road for what turned out to be an amazing trip! (where we actually stayed)

25th May - Litchfield, IL
26th - Lebanon, MO
27th - Edmond, OK
28th - Amarillo, TX
29th - Albuquerque, NM
30th - Holbrook, AZ
31st - Grand Canyon
1st June - Kingman
2nd - Las Vegas (3nights)
5th - Hollywood (3nights)

Clocked up 2607 miles in total, and had a brilliant time!

Thanks for reporting back, it sounds like you had a good time.

If you have time, would you like to share some of your experiences, like your favorite stops, what you learned, etc?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stanthecaddy

Hi, after picking our car up on Sunday May 25th we hit the road for what turned out to be an amazing trip! (where we actually stayed)

25th May - Litchfield, IL
26th - Lebanon, MO
27th - Edmond, OK
28th - Amarillo, TX
29th - Albuquerque, NM
30th - Holbrook, AZ
31st - Grand Canyon
1st June - Kingman
2nd - Las Vegas (3nights)
5th - Hollywood (3nights)

Clocked up 2607 miles in total, and had a brilliant time!

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I am about to embark on the same trip starting on monday. Can you give advise on motels or other places to stay? Did you have reservations for each of your stays or did you just find places along the way?

Ok, on planning our trip I had an idea in my mind as to where we should be at the end of each day to make the trip more enjoyable and almost equal mileage each day.

25/5 - The idea was to drive to at least Springfield, IL but ideally aim for Litchfield, IL. We stayed at the Super 8 in Litchfield which was absolutely fine for a night's sleep. Also, if you're there eat at the Ariston Cafe. (no reservations for Super 8, just turned up)

26/5 - Lebanon, MO - Stayed at the Munger Moss, reservations may be required but we tried to steer clear of making reservations in case our plans, etc changed. Really nice place, opposite a bowling alley which gave us a little evening entertainment.

27/5 - Edmond, OK - This was a good example of why we hadn't pre-booked our on-route accommodation. We were aiming for Tulsa but we'd made good ground and decided to go a bit further so that we could be closer to Oklahoma City for a morning trip to the National Memorial. We stayed at the Best Western, really comfortable beds!

28/5 - Amarillo, TX - We had decided on Amarillo because we wanted to eat at the Big Texan Steak ranch. We also decided to stay there too as the rooms looked quite cool. There are other places in town, and the BTSR will pick you up if you want to eat there!

29/5 - Albuquerque, NM - Stayed at the Monterey in the Old Town. However, this was based on a recommendation and it required to taxi ride to get to the "nightlife". (4 twentysomethings required this!)

30/5 - Holbrook, AZ - We wanted to stay at the Wigwam Motel because it looked cool but they had no vacancy (should've booked!) however, we drove slightly out of town to a Motel 6 and picked up two double rooms for $100!

31/5 - Grand Canyon - We booked rooms at the Red Feather Lodge on the morning we left Holbrook to ensure that we had somewhere to stay in Tusayan as we planned on doing a flight early on the next day. Probably the only place I think booking is essential.

1/6 - Kingman, AZ - After how cheap the Motel in Holbrook was we plumped for Motel 6 again and how glad we were as the price for two rooms was $74!

2/6 - Las Vegas - Booked the rooms at Circus Circus before we went to give us a target to meet on the road.

5/6 - Hollywood - Booked before we went also.

I'd recommend leaving Vegas to the end of the trip if possible and stay in Santa Monica in L.A. Wasn't that impressed with Hollywood.

Anything else I can help with please ask.

What were the general times you would come into a place you wanted to stay the night? I am figuring we will be entering a town around 7 or 8 pm. Is this too late to make a reservation? or will we be fine?

We generally looked to get to most places by 7pm. If I recall something along these lines...

Litchfield - just after 7pm (made it to the Ariston at 7.50pm they close at 8pm)
Lebanon - again just after 7pm
Edmond - about 9pm (long driving day)
Amarillo - about 8pm
Albuquerque - very early, about 5.30pm
Holbrook - 4pm ish
Grand Canyon - 4pm ish again
Kingman - 6-7pm ish

I think you'll be fine to just turn up at most places. In each of these places there were several alternatives available in the event of no vacancies.

That is great news to hear. Where did you grand canyon area where you? we were thinking of staying near the north rim. do you have any where to suggest we stay there?

Unfortunately we focused our trip to the Canyon based on arriving at the South Rim. Therefore, I never looked into any accommodation at the North Rim.

Last summer my wife and I drove route 66 from Chicago to LA and then up the coast to San Fran. Along the way we took in the Grand Canyon (South Rim) and Vegas. We did it in 3 weeks which seemed like a good length of time. In the early days we were getting on the road by 8.30/9.00am and getting to our destination by about 6ish. As the holiday progressed we relaxed a little more and had later starts but I didn't feel we suffered for this, we were still able to make plenty of stops on the route. I'd gladly post up any stats or itinerary for anyone doing this run. :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by apet20

Did you have reservations for each of your stays or did you just find places along the way?

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Here are some tips and observations about our thoughts about reservations -- and one of the things to consider is to try to hit the "seam" between the day and night shifts of the motel desk manager. Obviously if there are insufficient motel rooms in a given town this doesn't work very well -- but just about every desk manager is paid a bonus based on the percentage of occupancy of the motel and often times you can negotiate a lower rate for a night's lodging if you manage to arrive at the motel right before that shift change. An occupied but discounted room always trumps an empty one on their personnel records. Generally that shift change happens 4:30 to 6:30 and I have had good luck with asking for discounted room in those periods. The other time that works well is at about 10:30 am when the liklihood of further non-reserved check-ins is diminished.

Mark

thought i'd post a link to my blog
not as in depth as yet, but i will update it.

Enjoyed your blog! I still kick myself for driving through Winslow and forgetting all about "the corner". Ack!

Thanks for that PNW Judy. It was my first attempt at a blog.

Vinny Jones used to be a soccer player here in England. He has since gone into the movie business and now lives in LA.