Route 66: EZ66 GUIDE For Travelers - 4TH EDITION

In Route 66, Jerry McClanahan offers the ultimate guide for adventurers eager to explore the iconic American highway, famously known as the Mother Road. While over 80% of the original Route 66 remains drivable, navigation can be tricky without the right tools, as ordinary maps often omit this historic route and signage can be sparse. The 4th Edition EZ66 GUIDE For Travelers fills this gap, providing comprehensive and updated information to help travelers navigate from either the WEST or the EAST. This guide features user-friendly maps and directions, allowing readers to easily follow along as they embark on their journey. The spiral-bound design ensures that the book stays open to the relevant pages while driving, enhancing convenience on the road. The guide also includes details about attractions, tips for the journey, additional resources, and fun games to make the trip even more enjoyable. With its compact 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" format and 216 pages of essential information, Route 66 is a must-have for any traveler looking to experience the rich history and vibrant culture along this legendary route. Whether you're a seasoned road warrior or a first-time explorer, McClanahan's guide promises to make your adventure unforgettable.

Prior to leaving on my spring 2012 solo cross country road trip I purchased Route 66: EZ66 Guide for Travelers, 2nd Edition by Jerry Mc Clanahan (5 stars), Route 66 Adventure Handbook: Turbocharged Fourth Edition by Drew Knowles (3 stars) and Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America's Two-Lane Highways by Jamie Jensen (4 stars) from Amazon (best prices you'll find). My plan was to drive to Chicago, IL from Providence, RI and from there to Santa Monica, CA following old RT 66. For the Providence to Chicago leg of my trip I used Road Trip USA. While this book gives you a general idea of the routes you want to take it is NOT a turn by turn guide (good driving directions would have been appreciated). It does give many sightseeing suggestions that I did use extensively. Paired with a good GPS unit or additional maps this book is idea for road trips throughout the USA. On reaching Chicago I found RT 66 and switched over to Route 66: EZ Guide and Route 66 Adventure Handbook. I found RT 66: EZ Guide to be indispensible for traveling 66. I did manage to get lost in nearly every city I drove through as I was both driver and navigator but this would have been solved with the inclusion of the street name of 66 as it passed through cities. Route 66 Adventure Handbook was less useful. It does give you great ideas for sightseeing but finding these locations can be a problem. The addition of street addresses or GPS coordinates would be helpful! Highlights along 66 were Pontiac, IL, Meramec Caverns, the Painted Desert and Grand Canyon. On reaching Santa Monica I had no plan so I pieced together several of the routes in Road Trip USA to return home. The highlights of the return trip were the Pacific Coast Highway and Yellowstone, not to be missed.

The book is a labor of love, with much tremendous and valuable information about navigating Route 66. Be sure to have supplemental guide materials, including city maps and a road atlas for the United States: can recommend the 2022 Rand McNally guide. The EZ 66 GUIDE is well-recommended, but has errors that can create difficulties. My personal examples include the following: 1) incorrect identification of the Old Chicago Road, Illinois, as approached by Brown Road rather than the correct designation: MacPherson Road; 2) out-of-date and misleading routes into Springfield, IL; 3) extremely vague (turn at the house(?)) and, in one case, unidentifiable road direction onto Rte. 58, Hydro, approaching Clinton, OK; 4) errors in the EZ 66 Guide, mentioned by railroad museum and other local inhabitants in various Route 66 towns. I mention these because the personnel involved spoke of the author's negative attitude and non-acceptance of suggestions/corrections offered by the actual inhabitants of the locations previewed. That constitutes a red-flag, in my opinion.

Excellent format. Each page is a segment of the trip. Top of page are directions in a box. Bottom of page is directions in a box for going the other way. Middle of the page is info on that segment - optional side trips, things to look for on this segment, etc. Often includes very helpful small but detailed map of this segment. Learned that the 66 route changed over the years. In some instances the route thru a city changed two or three time. These were all route 66 at various times and some are better than others. So which should you take? A recommended route is given and that was a huge help but the others are described for the die hard 66 driver. Even very early unpaved segments are described but none are part of the recommended route. Coil binding makes it easy to handle in the car. Hard to make good time in the camper. Didn't expect that. Lanes are the old narrow width. Tough for RVs. Should have read the intro more carefully as this is mentioned. Sometimes no shoulder. At the edge of the lane is grass. Can't pull over. Didn't expect that. Maybe these things are outside the scope of the book. For directions the book is outstanding. I highly recommend it.

Used for my bicycle trip on Rt66 - pointed me in the direction of some great sites that I otherwise would have missed! Great stories and history included! Strongly recommended resource!

We just did Route 66 from Chicago all the way to Santa Monica, using Route 66:EZ66 Guide for Travelers (2nd edition) as our guide. Not only was it one of the most fun trips we've ever done but it was also one of the most complete. When I was in college 50 years ago, classmates and I used to take drive-away cars on non-stop 40-hour trips home to California from Chicago along Route 66 at Christmas and in the summer, and a more leisurely trip has been on my bucket list for a long time. This book was fairly easy to follow with one of us driving and the other navigating (even when "the other one" is not considered a navigator). We tried to cover about 250-300 miles a day, reading the guide the night before so that we had a good idea what was coming the next day. Then we'd occasionally stop to re-read and make sure we weren't missing anything. Seemed like every duo or group of travelers we ran into was using the guide too! The Europeans and Australians we met told us "everyone" in their respective countries knows about Route 66, so they were fulfilling their dreams right along with us. The only thing we'd do differently is to travel less each day and take longer than 10 days. The format of the book is set up for either east-to-west or west-to-east travel. A few times we were a little confused because of the realignments of the route over the years, but really the only thing I can suggest to improve the book would be to indicate the approximate distances between turns and/or sights. Unfortunately, a few of the sights have closed even since this edition came out--inevitable, I suppose. Loved the spiral binding too. Take the trip, and take this book! You'll have a ball!!

This guide has a lot to recommend it, and McClanahan deserves our thanks for chronicling easy-to-overlook delights along the path of the Mother Road, but let's not confuse "EZ" with "Small." The same information displayed on pages large enough to permit juxtaposing it with the strip maps would be much more user friendly. It's very EZ to lose your point of reference on any given page, which requires forward and backward thumbing through the text to retrieve the corresponding map, and the celebrated spiral binding actually contributes to this. It's interesting to note that several of the reviewers rated it five stars without actually having used it, which speaks more to the cuteness of its appearance than its practicality. McClanahan's syntax and terms of art also can be fairly frustrating. The route instruction "Stay Ahead" not only lacks any intuitive meaning, it's also misleading because whereas "staying ahead" implies going straight ahead, it doesn't rule out the need to watch carefully for required turns. In the intro, he says "Stay Ahead" means "do not turn off the road you are traveling," but is that the street name, the route number or the pavement? Rally nomenclature is much more instructive, e.g. "Turn onto Jones Road and follow," where "follow" is the operative term meaning "stay on the road marked Jones Road until instructed to leave it." Based on last week's real-world experiences using the guide from Oklahoma through Arizona, I would strongly recommend studying each section thorougly before entering it, and using color-coded highlighters, Post-Its or other such devices to facilitate quick cross referencing. I wish I could gush over this work as other reviewers have because I truly appreciate the work McClanahan has done to improve awareness and appreciation of this once-lost natural treasure. Good info? Absolutely. EZ? Not so much. The following was added to my review after a second experience with the book: My wife, who is a seasoned navigator, had a heck of a time using the EZ Guide last week. We enjoy taking motor trips together, do so frequently, and have excellent navigator-driver communication. I can't recall the last time we lost our bearings when she was using conventional maps or even AAA Triptiks. Instructions for navigating Amarillo are especially poor. And even having run much of the same route with my son last summer, I wasn't much help. By way of practical advice, I strongly urge anyone planning to use the EZ Guide to take Mr. McClanahan up on his offer and obtain updates before setting out. We found several motels he mentions in the book out of business. In this regard, the user should take special care to avoid using the Guide to project an evening's final destination -- in our case there was nowhere to stay when we did, and had to press on for a larger city. Finally, I would also suggest taking McClanahan's caveats about restaurants and motels he mentions in the Guide seriously. Even in the context of the faded and funky world of Old 66, his comments on some of the places he more-or-less recommends are somewhat optimistic. Unfortunately, this may have more to do with the declining health of commerce along the route than a divergence of opinion on what constitutes a good meal or a nice place to crash for the night.

Great, handy guide for my 3-week drive from Chicago to LA. Packed full of helpful information that helped me maximize my historic drive! Don’t leave home without it! You may get lost!

Nous avons pu préparer notre road trip avec cet ouvrage. Très détaillé et à jour ! super

Comprado de segunda mano recibido en excelentes condiciones, es la mejor herramienta para continuar por la original ruta 66 ya que está detallada al máximo.

My husband is still reading it and he has found so many interesting points of reference for ppl wanting to travel the route 66 :) Ok, has now read the book and mentioned to me he really found it informative and a good read !

I bought this book as I heard good reviews on it. I am British and planning to do sections of Route 66 over a few years. I have already driven the Black Mountains section through Barstow, Amboy, Oatman and Seligman as far as the Grand Canyon junction. Next month I am driving the LA section right through to Oklahoma City. As I plan to travel West - East, I was having difficulty finding guidebooks and anyone who has travelled sections of R66 will know how difficult it can be to find in some places! Although better for travellers going from East - West, this has a guide for those, like me driving in the "wrong" direction too. It is in a great ring binder fastening so it will be easy to use whilst travelling, appears to have great maps and additional places to visit if you have extra time. I have briefly looked through it and it looks like it will be a great help. I will see if it is as good as it looks and update my review on my return from the Mother Road.

Es bueno, mas que nada para saber como acompañar la ruta 66 sin caer en otras rutas.