Hip to the Trip

This fully revised and updated edition of Peter B. Dedek's classic is a thorough dive into the history and current delights of America's Road in time for its 100th birthday! In 2026, Route 66 reached a major mile marker: it has celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary. Commissioned by the federal government as US Highway 66 in 1926, Route 66 has weathered many bumps in the road. The old road even survived a near-death experience in 1985 when it was bypassed by interstate highways and officially decommissioned only to rise again as a historic landmark and symbol of the independent American spirit and America’s love affair with the automobile. Although much along the historic highway has been lost over the years, Route 66 still has a lot to offer. Old motels, vacant gas stations, vintage restaurants, and decayed tourist traps have been preserved and transformed into sites of reverence and memory. In the past few decades, the highway has evolved into a linear community, a heritage corridor, an American route of pilgrimage sustained by a series of preserved landmarks visited by tourists from all over the world. More recently built museums, visitors’ centers, roadside parks, and Route 66–themed businesses offer tourists the chance to experience myriad aspects of the highway and the ideas it represents. This book examines the many meanings of Route 66 and how they relate to its past, present, and future. More an idea than a highway, Route 66 symbolizes a sense of freedom and benign rebellion against the constrained routines of modern life, a place where one can wander and live in the moment. The old road also represents community, wholesome enjoyment, and an entrepreneurial, independent spirit. Route 66 is a road of stories and legends.