Route 66 Centennial Road Trip

[N Wilson]

This year, 2026 is the Centennial of Route 66, so I was thinking it would be fun to do a road trip with my family on The Mother Road.

I'm only in the beginning stages of planning and figuring out if this is even possible for us financially and time-wise, so it's by no means a definite plan yet and very well may not happen. Since I live in MA, it would basically be a full cross-country road trip, as I'd have to drive across the whole Eastern US just to get to the start of Route 66 in Chicago, then, if we drive the full length to CA, we'd have to drive all the way back across the country to get home.

One thing I am thinking about is whether it would make more sense to buy a tow behind camper and stay at campgrounds, or skip the camper and stay at hotels/motels. Anyone done a road trip on Route 66 and have any thoughts either way about this?

Another question I have is about charging infrastructure along the route. Anyone have any sense of what that's like? If I end up going with the camper option, I'll need to charge more frequently as the Lightning suffers from reduced range when towing a large trailer. Any pull-through charging stations along the route?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions soon.

 

[N Wilson]

Another thought I have is this:

If I end up doing this trip, would any other members who live near parts of the route want to either meet up, or join the caravan for part or all of the trip?

 

[J Alynn]

This year, 2026 is the Centennial of Route 66, so I was thinking it would be fun to do a road trip with my family on The Mother Road.

I'm only in the beginning stages of planning and figuring out if this is even possible for us financially and time-wise, so it's by no means a definite plan yet and very well may not happen. Since I live in MA, it would basically be a full cross-country road trip, as I'd have to drive across the whole Eastern US just to get to the start of Route 66 in Chicago, then, if we drive the full length to CA, we'd have to drive all the way back across the country to get home.

One thing I am thinking about is whether it would make more sense to buy a tow behind camper and stay at campgrounds, or skip the camper and stay at hotels/motels. Anyone done a road trip on Route 66 and have any thoughts either way about this?

Another question I have is about charging infrastructure along the route. Anyone have any sense of what that's like? If I end up going with the camper option, I'll need to charge more frequently as the Lightning suffers from reduced range when towing a large trailer. Any pull-through charging stations along the route?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions soon.

Never driven it but to me I always imagined the nostalgia of older hotels along the way would be a cool experience

 

[Scoutsie]

This year, 2026 is the Centennial of Route 66, so I was thinking it would be fun to do a road trip with my family on The Mother Road.

I'm only in the beginning stages of planning and figuring out if this is even possible for us financially and time-wise, so it's by no means a definite plan yet and very well may not happen. Since I live in MA, it would basically be a full cross-country road trip, as I'd have to drive across the whole Eastern US just to get to the start of Route 66 in Chicago, then, if we drive the full length to CA, we'd have to drive all the way back across the country to get home.

One thing I am thinking about is whether it would make more sense to buy a tow behind camper and stay at campgrounds, or skip the camper and stay at hotels/motels. Anyone done a road trip on Route 66 and have any thoughts either way about this?

Another question I have is about charging infrastructure along the route. Anyone have any sense of what that's like? If I end up going with the camper option, I'll need to charge more frequently as the Lightning suffers from reduced range when towing a large trailer. Any pull-through charging stations along the route?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions soon.

Is it a horrible personal admission to say that I learned of the existence of the Route 66 song through the Depeche Mode cover of it as a teenager, which is probably like a 16-year-old kid today asking you “What’s a Steve McQueen?” or something similarly tragic?

(There was a PBS documentary about all of the winsome Americana and whatnot later on that cleared things up and used an era-appropriate version: don’t remember which)

More on topic, there’s a website that has mapped out all of the cool kitschy stuff that some couple found on their travels. Provided all of this stuff has survived COVID and whatnot, this seems like a helpful guide. Something that’s really sad that I was talking about with my mom is how many places that you just kind of assumed would always be around are now disappearing. Around here, at least.

Route 66: The Mother Road

www.route66roadtrip.com

Blog of someone who went in 2024… she has tips on when is best to go, what she saw, etc.

How to Plan an Epic Route 66 Road Trip

Visit the post for more.

www.travellingwithnikki.com

This site says it’s a trip planner? I don’t know if I’d trust this for making reservations, but for exploring options, sure.

Driving Route 66 | Your one-stop resource for planning the road trip of a lifetime

Driving Route 66 - your one-stop resource for planning the road trip of a lifetime. Route 66 maps, motels, attractions and Trip Planner.

www.drivingroute66.com

I’m of an age and generation where the idea that I have to watch a video in order to gain knowledge that I could have searched for and read in less time pisses me off, but apparently/allegedly YouTube has some decent guides on planning a Route 66 trip. I guess the payoff there is seeing stuff in advance.

If I wasn’t a broke-ass person I would love to take my real national parks pass, real infinite leisure time, and imaginary disposable income and join you for this, but I’m missing one of these tangibles.

 

[maynard]

Another thought I have is this:

If I end up doing this trip, would any other members who live near parts of the route want to either meet up, or join the caravan for part or all of the trip?

What an awesome idea!

Could even be campsite meet-ups / potluck / campfire fun…

My wife and I are about 2 hours from 80/90 where it passes south of Toledo, as your plans come together let us know if you may be camping near there…

 

[cyure]

This year, 2026 is the Centennial of Route 66, so I was thinking it would be fun to do a road trip with my family on The Mother Road.

I'm only in the beginning stages of planning and figuring out if this is even possible for us financially and time-wise, so it's by no means a definite plan yet and very well may not happen. Since I live in MA, it would basically be a full cross-country road trip, as I'd have to drive across the whole Eastern US just to get to the start of Route 66 in Chicago, then, if we drive the full length to CA, we'd have to drive all the way back across the country to get home.

One thing I am thinking about is whether it would make more sense to buy a tow behind camper and stay at campgrounds, or skip the camper and stay at hotels/motels. Anyone done a road trip on Route 66 and have any thoughts either way about this?

Another question I have is about charging infrastructure along the route. Anyone have any sense of what that's like? If I end up going with the camper option, I'll need to charge more frequently as the Lightning suffers from reduced range when towing a large trailer. Any pull-through charging stations along the route?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions soon.

I think that’s a great idea! Route 66 does go through our city and they are planning celebrations for the 100th.

A couple car guys posted their recent trip for the 100th. There’s a book apparently that gives you the directions you can follow so you can stay on Route 66. That’s how they navigated it. I have watched the first two episodes, I still have the last episode to watch.

 

[dreamweaver]

Is it a horrible personal admission to say that I learned of the existence of the Route 66 song through the Depeche Mode cover of it as a teenager, which is probably like a 16-year-old kid today asking you “What’s a Steve McQueen?” or something similarly tragic?

(There was a PBS documentary about all of the winsome Americana and whatnot later on that cleared things up and used an era-appropriate version: don’t remember which)

More on topic, there’s a website that has mapped out all of the cool kitschy stuff that some couple found on their travels. Provided all of this stuff has survived COVID and whatnot, this seems like a helpful guide. Something that’s really sad that I was talking about with my mom is how many places that you just kind of assumed would always be around are now disappearing. Around here, at least.

Route 66: The Mother Road

www.route66roadtrip.com

Blog of someone who went in 2024… she has tips on when is best to go, what she saw, etc.

How to Plan an Epic Route 66 Road Trip

Visit the post for more.

www.travellingwithnikki.com

This site says it’s a trip planner? I don’t know if I’d trust this for making reservations, but for exploring options, sure.

Driving Route 66 | Your one-stop resource for planning the road trip of a lifetime

Driving Route 66 - your one-stop resource for planning the road trip of a lifetime. Route 66 maps, motels, attractions and Trip Planner.

www.drivingroute66.com

I’m of an age and generation where the idea that I have to watch a video in order to gain knowledge that I could have searched for and read in less time pisses me off, but apparently/allegedly YouTube has some decent guides on planning a Route 66 trip. I guess the payoff there is seeing stuff in advance.

If I wasn’t a broke-ass person I would love to take my real national parks pass, real infinite leisure time, and imaginary disposable income and join you for this, but I’m missing one of these tangibles.

A lot of good information. Thanks.

 

[N Wilson]

I wanted to jump on here and give an update. I haven't been on the forum much lately, because life...

Anyway, this trip is getting closer to a reality. At first, the plan was to take my wife's minivan and stay at hotels. A couple of things conspired to take that option off the table.
1. My wife has a high level of anxiety about picking up a bedbug infestation from hotels. Probably a bit overblown, but I know it can happen. This made her very uncomfortable with the hotel/motel idea.
2. A little war with Iran that has pushed gas prices above $4.00/gallon suddenly made the relatively high cost of DCFCs much more attractive compared to the cost of gas driving cross country and back, even with greatly reduced range from towing a trailer.

Which brings me to the next update. We bought a camper a few weeks ago. Since my Lightning doesn't have the max trailer tow package (basically a second cooling loop for the battery, as I understand it) my max towing capacity is 7,700 lbs vs 10,000 lbs if I had the max trailer tow. In light of this, we were very careful when choosing a trailer so as not to go too heavy and overload the truck. We found a used 2022 Gulf Stream that is 27'6" long and has a dry weight of 3,899 lbs and a tongue weight of 500 lbs. The camper has bunks for my two older kids, a queen bed for my wife and I, and the dinette converts to a bed for our youngest kid. We are in the process of buying the gear we'll need for camping, such as water and sewer hoses, wheel chocks, etc. We already bought an RV cord and a generator adapter to go from the 3 prong RV plug to a 4 prong twist lock plug that can plug into the 240 outlet in the bed of the Lightning. This means that if we are at a campground without electrical hookups or camping somewhere other than a campground, I can plug the camper into the truck and have power for the appliances in the camper. This is a big advantage for the Lightning, as it gives us much more flexibility with camping locations.

If my kids can manage to pack reasonable amounts for the trip and we're careful about how we load the camper (don't put all the weight in the front or back) we should be ok.

One question I'm trying to figure out is whether I need a weight distribution hitch or not? I talked to a few truck equipment shops around here and at least one said I should take a few test runs on the highway with the camper loaded and see how it tows before buying a WDH. That seems like good advice. I will try to do that in the next week or so. I did tow it home from where we bought it which was a little over an hour from my house (~40 miles) and it towed fine. It's a dual axle camper, so that probably helps with stability.

I got 1 mile/kWh when towing the camper home which is about what I expected. It was cold and snowing that day, so that probably didn't help with the range. With the 131 kWh battery in my Lightning, I am expecting to see a range of about 120-150 miles between charging stops. Honestly, this seems like a good pace as I figure we'll drive a couple hours in the morning, have lunch while charging, drive a couple more hours in the afternoon, then camp for the night. With 3 kids along, I don't think they'd be able to handle much longer stretches of driving between stops.

I used the trip planner feature in Plugshare and roughly planned out the route and it looks like there are plenty of chargers along the route so no worries there.

I'll try to post more updates as they come along. If we do the Route 66 trip, the plan is to leave in late June. My employer gives the week of July 4th off paid, so I can use that week to reduce how much PTO I have to use up for the rest of the trip. We will likely incorporate a stop at Niagara Falls into the first or second day of the trip, since the route to get to the start of Route 66 in Chicago will take us within 20 minutes or so of Niagara Falls.

 

[cyure]

I wanted to jump on here and give an update. I haven't been on the forum much lately, because life...

Anyway, this trip is getting closer to a reality. At first, the plan was to take my wife's minivan and stay at hotels. A couple of things conspired to take that option off the table.
1. My wife has a high level of anxiety about picking up a bedbug infestation from hotels. Probably a bit overblown, but I know it can happen. This made her very uncomfortable with the hotel/motel idea.
2. A little war with Iran that has pushed gas prices above $4.00/gallon suddenly made the relatively high cost of DCFCs much more attractive compared to the cost of gas driving cross country and back, even with greatly reduced range from towing a trailer.

Which brings me to the next update. We bought a camper a few weeks ago. Since my Lightning doesn't have the max trailer tow package (basically a second cooling loop for the battery, as I understand it) my max towing capacity is 7,700 lbs vs 10,000 lbs if I had the max trailer tow. In light of this, we were very careful when choosing a trailer so as not to go too heavy and overload the truck. We found a used 2022 Gulf Stream that is 27'6" long and has a dry weight of 3,899 lbs and a tongue weight of 500 lbs. The camper has bunks for my two older kids, a queen bed for my wife and I, and the dinette converts to a bed for our youngest kid. We are in the process of buying the gear we'll need for camping, such as water and sewer hoses, wheel chocks, etc. We already bought an RV cord and a generator adapter to go from the 3 prong RV plug to a 4 prong twist lock plug that can plug into the 240 outlet in the bed of the Lightning. This means that if we are at a campground without electrical hookups or camping somewhere other than a campground, I can plug the camper into the truck and have power for the appliances in the camper. This is a big advantage for the Lightning, as it gives us much more flexibility with camping locations.

If my kids can manage to pack reasonable amounts for the trip and we're careful about how we load the camper (don't put all the weight in the front or back) we should be ok.

One question I'm trying to figure out is whether I need a weight distribution hitch or not? I talked to a few truck equipment shops around here and at least one said I should take a few test runs on the highway with the camper loaded and see how it tows before buying a WDH. That seems like good advice. I will try to do that in the next week or so. I did tow it home from where we bought it which was a little over an hour from my house (~40 miles) and it towed fine. It's a dual axle camper, so that probably helps with stability.

I got 1 mile/kWh when towing the camper home which is about what I expected. It was cold and snowing that day, so that probably didn't help with the range. With the 131 kWh battery in my Lightning, I am expecting to see a range of about 120-150 miles between charging stops. Honestly, this seems like a good pace as I figure we'll drive a couple hours in the morning, have lunch while charging, drive a couple more hours in the afternoon, then camp for the night. With 3 kids along, I don't think they'd be able to handle much longer stretches of driving between stops.

I used the trip planner feature in Plugshare and roughly planned out the route and it looks like there are plenty of chargers along the route so no worries there.

I'll try to post more updates as they come along. If we do the Route 66 trip, the plan is to leave in late June. My employer gives the week of July 4th off paid, so I can use that week to reduce how much PTO I have to use up for the rest of the trip. We will likely incorporate a stop at Niagara Falls into the first or second day of the trip, since the route to get to the start of Route 66 in Chicago will take us within 20 minutes or so of Niagara Falls.

That’s awesome! Looking forward to your trip updates.

 

[J Alynn]

I wanted to jump on here and give an update. I haven't been on the forum much lately, because life...

Anyway, this trip is getting closer to a reality. At first, the plan was to take my wife's minivan and stay at hotels. A couple of things conspired to take that option off the table.
1. My wife has a high level of anxiety about picking up a bedbug infestation from hotels. Probably a bit overblown, but I know it can happen. This made her very uncomfortable with the hotel/motel idea.
2. A little war with Iran that has pushed gas prices above $4.00/gallon suddenly made the relatively high cost of DCFCs much more attractive compared to the cost of gas driving cross country and back, even with greatly reduced range from towing a trailer.

Which brings me to the next update. We bought a camper a few weeks ago. Since my Lightning doesn't have the max trailer tow package (basically a second cooling loop for the battery, as I understand it) my max towing capacity is 7,700 lbs vs 10,000 lbs if I had the max trailer tow. In light of this, we were very careful when choosing a trailer so as not to go too heavy and overload the truck. We found a used 2022 Gulf Stream that is 27'6" long and has a dry weight of 3,899 lbs and a tongue weight of 500 lbs. The camper has bunks for my two older kids, a queen bed for my wife and I, and the dinette converts to a bed for our youngest kid. We are in the process of buying the gear we'll need for camping, such as water and sewer hoses, wheel chocks, etc. We already bought an RV cord and a generator adapter to go from the 3 prong RV plug to a 4 prong twist lock plug that can plug into the 240 outlet in the bed of the Lightning. This means that if we are at a campground without electrical hookups or camping somewhere other than a campground, I can plug the camper into the truck and have power for the appliances in the camper. This is a big advantage for the Lightning, as it gives us much more flexibility with camping locations.

If my kids can manage to pack reasonable amounts for the trip and we're careful about how we load the camper (don't put all the weight in the front or back) we should be ok.

One question I'm trying to figure out is whether I need a weight distribution hitch or not? I talked to a few truck equipment shops around here and at least one said I should take a few test runs on the highway with the camper loaded and see how it tows before buying a WDH. That seems like good advice. I will try to do that in the next week or so. I did tow it home from where we bought it which was a little over an hour from my house (~40 miles) and it towed fine. It's a dual axle camper, so that probably helps with stability.

I got 1 mile/kWh when towing the camper home which is about what I expected. It was cold and snowing that day, so that probably didn't help with the range. With the 131 kWh battery in my Lightning, I am expecting to see a range of about 120-150 miles between charging stops. Honestly, this seems like a good pace as I figure we'll drive a couple hours in the morning, have lunch while charging, drive a couple more hours in the afternoon, then camp for the night. With 3 kids along, I don't think they'd be able to handle much longer stretches of driving between stops.

I used the trip planner feature in Plugshare and roughly planned out the route and it looks like there are plenty of chargers along the route so no worries there.

I'll try to post more updates as they come along. If we do the Route 66 trip, the plan is to leave in late June. My employer gives the week of July 4th off paid, so I can use that week to reduce how much PTO I have to use up for the rest of the trip. We will likely incorporate a stop at Niagara Falls into the first or second day of the trip, since the route to get to the start of Route 66 in Chicago will take us within 20 minutes or so of Niagara Falls.

Awesome. Keep us posted

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

With a tongue weight of 500 pounds, your trailer is at the maximum your truck (any non-HD truck) can safely tow without a WDH.

If you load the trailer carefully, you'll likely stay below 500 pounds tongue weight. Once you've loaded it the way you want it, take it to a scale and ask them to get the various weights: the GCW, the truck weight, the trailer weight, the tongue weight, etc.

Trade-offs:
A WDH costs a bit of money so if you don't need it, you might not want to spend the money.

Many WDHs can have anti-sway capabilities added. Or you can buy an anti-sway hitch (often more expensive than a WDH). The lightning has anti-sway capabilities built-in.

A WDH makes it more complicated to hook up and unhook the trailer. If you have to drop the trailer to charge, it'll add a couple of minutes to that process.

A WDH directly reduces your available cargo weight on a 1:1 basis. If it's 100 pounds, that's 100 pounds less weight you can include in the cargo of the truck. Its weight is also on the tongue, but that's not usually an issue.

 

[BeerParty]

I wanted to jump on here and give an update. I haven't been on the forum much lately, because life...

Thanks for the update. I hope the trailer works out for you, it sounds like you have a good plan in place, but a long trip as your first serious use of the trailer seems a bit daring. Do you have experience towing and camping in a trailer?

 

[N Wilson]

Thanks for the update. I hope the trailer works out for you, it sounds like you have a good plan in place, but a long trip as your first serious use of the trailer seems a bit daring. Do you have experience towing and camping in a trailer?

That's an excellent point.

I have some towing experience from previous jobs throughout the years, but not a ton.

We don't have much camping experience, but we plan to take a few shorter trips in early/mid June to get ourselves accustomed to it before the long trip.