Creating Our Own Travel Guide For Route 66

Only 7-1/2 states to go! Having just completed the California section of Route 66, I’m now in the throes of planning out the rest of our route from Michigan Ave in Chicago to Kingman, Arizona. There are guides galore out there. Some you can buy. Some are free. I’ve found that no one guide has everything I’m after, so I’ve been carefully reading and vetting each guide I find, culling the information I want, and creating a personalized guide that fits our travel style. I just found out, for instance, that the Navy Pier in Chicago now has a ‘The Road Starts Here’ sign that was erected in March 2025 and that there are 12 Illinois ‘passport’ station stamps available at Wayside Exhibits along Route 66 in Illinois. Then there are the 3-D street paintings in Joplin, Missouri that I’d never heard of, and the special Land of the Giants passport book you can obtain in Tulsa. None of the guides mentioned these. If we’re going to spend the time traveling 2,448 miles to celebrate the Mother Road’s…