Customer Reviews

Route 66 Dining & Lodging Guide - 12th Edition

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

On a recent trip a few weeks ago from Chicago to Needles, CA on Route 66 we used this book extensively. All motels and restaurants listed in the book were exactly as promised. We were never disappointed. If you prefer to sleep and eat at NON-franchised establishemnts - you need this book. There are franchised motels listed, but there are several Mom n' Pop motels & cafes still operating. Even if your not traveling the Mother Road, most places are just a very short drive off of the boring interstate highways. Look for these places - you WILL enjoy the change of pace.

The Dining and Lodging Guide is not, and was never intended to be, a guide to finding and driving Route 66. There's many good books and maps for that. INSTEAD, it is a valuable resource for finding places to eat and sleep while on your Route 66 journey.

Full dislcosure time...I am a member of the National Historic Route 66 Federation, and a Route 66 author and artist. I had NO part in developing this dining and lodging guide...that was done by volunteers.

But, even though I have been researching Old 66 since 1981, I have found several editions of this frequently updated guide to be very useful, and never travel the Route without it.

So, if you want to know a good place to stay in Vega, TX, or eat in Springfield Il, make sure this guide is in your glovebox!

Great resource for finding places to eat and sleep while following Route 66--or for anybody traveling through the areas covered by this guide. An invaluable supplement to road maps and/or turn-by-turn guides to 66.

Something to keep in mind is that the Guide isn't meant to be a Zagat's or a "what's most popular" guide to Route 66. Rather, the Guide is a reference which can be used both in the planning stages of a Route 66 trip and while actually out on the road.

Unlike some earlier reviewers here, I prefer the personal viewpoints in each section of the Guide. Listings based on online popularity contests result in bland, homogenized recommendations which cater to the lowest common denominator. The fun of exploring Route 66 comes from experiencing the unusual, the unexpected, and the unknown.

This guide is a real winner!

I just read some of the other reviews here and the few negatives were
based on expecting this guide to be everything and to include
everything. The Dining & Lodging Guide is exactly what it is to
purported to be - a guide that will help you find good places to eat
and stay while avoiding those worth avoiding. As you travel through
communities, you simply don't know what's good or bad without some
objective recommendations. And incidentally, this guide will give you
the information you need to make reservations in advance.

We never would have stopped at several of the highly rated places,
but thanks to the guide, we did, and thoroughly enjoyed them. Three
examples were Bobcat Bite, the Blue Swallow Motel and the Midpoint Cafe.

One reviewer here said, there were some places the guide didn't list.
Well, it has over 500 in it. There are thousands of places along the
Route and there is no way to include them all.

I certainly agree with the reviewer who said you will want several
types of guides before you set out on your trip.

I think the Route 66 Federation is performing an important service in
publishing this very helpful guide.

Maggie Kaspersetz's review is very misguided. We doubt that she purchased the Dining & Lodging Guide. If she had, she wouldn't compare it to two sources that are travel guides and don't evaluate or even list places to stay and eat. We ask that you dismiss her evaluation as illogical.

Great resource for finding places to eat and sleep while following Route 66--or for anybody traveling through the areas covered by this guide. An invaluable supplement to road maps and/or turn-by-turn guides to 66.

We took the Route 66 Trip in 2004 with an older edition of the Dining and Lodging Guide and found it to be very helpful. So I ordered the new edition before we took the trip again this past fall. There were a few places that have closed since the book was printed. And of course you always found a few that shouldn't be in the book, but you really need to look a place over carefully anyway. I find the same to be true with my AAA Guide books. Overall the Dining and Lodging book was very helpful. I would give it a 90% and I would get another updated version if we took the trip again. (Just avoid the Silver Saddle Motel in Santa Fe.)

This guide was very helpful. We tried several restaurants in the book and all were very good. The El Rey Inn in Santa Fe was beautiful. I highly recommend staying there. This is worth buying. It made the trip enjoyable knowing that where we were eating and staying were good. We would have missed many of them if not for the book.

Have you ever taken a vacation by car and thought you would be able to find a decent place to stay, only to find out it wasn't what you expected? Or what about those times you were soooo hungry, wanting to stop at many restaurants along the way but they just didn't look appetizing and on and on you drove! Well, no more! This jam-packed guide is just what you need before getting on "The Road", guiding you along the way right to those tasty, friendly, home-cooked meals just like long ago. You'll have your pick of many lodging places, making you feel as though you are part of the family, along with learning the historial background about them from their yesterday's to today. You can count on this information as it has been written from the experts who practically live on the road or do and know it first-hand forward and backwards. So...what are you waiting for? My husband and I highly recommend this first-class guide book. It is a must so order at least a few as they make great gifts.

The 2,400 miles of Route 66 are divided into 24 100-mile segments and each of the listings are placed within these groups. This does help those deciding how to travel, as one can determine how many hundreds of miles to cover in a day, and can plan for lodging, etc.

The drawbacks are that the dining and lodging listings are separate within each segment, so one has to consult a map. I found a nice place to eat but I later found that it would be several miles back from where I might stay. It might be an idea to have a listing for each segment of all items in order. Some smaller towns required me to consult a map to see just how far these individual towns were apart.

On a very positive note, though, I found several very nice, what one might call "out of the way" places to eat that were off the interstates. I don't think that one can do justice to a trip like that without dining at places like that.

I do wish it could be noted if a place is owned by a Route 66 "lifer" or still in the family along that line. Some places were bought up by foreigners...I am not against foreigners here at all, but they won't have any desire to sit and talk with you about the merits of Route 66 and its history. I had a nice talk with a couple diner and motel owners and would gladly go there again, and I would have to make certain to visit other spots along the way that I sadly missed.

There is one segment (I will not mention it in this review) that I felt was sadly under-represented. Thankfully I had another guide, as there were elements of the movie "Cars" that could be found in the town that began that segment. The town is full of locally-owned, neon-lit businesses and motels that were just plain overlooked. My recommendation to anyone is to rely not on a single guide, book, or map, but rather a multiple set.