I've been lucky to travel to a lot of the USA. With our Route 66 Road trip being one of my first introductions to the USA (apart from New York) I've now done 14 states. Ok that might not be as many as some - but having spoken with some American's who've not even left their county let alone their state, it's not probably a bad amount! However what are My Top 5 USA cities? There are many people from around the world who might only visit New York or perhaps Orlando with the theme parks. Whilst of course they are great and at least one of them might feature in this Top 5 there are so many other places that you as a visitor should be ticking off! Not…

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Dear British Airways, It’s not me, It’s you. I really tried my best to love you and be with you but I think it’s time we had the “chat”. It sounds like a breakup letter – and in some ways I guess that’s how I feel at this very moment. So here’s the thing. I fly a lot in the year. Yes not as much as some people but a lot more than a lot of people. I’ll probably end up this year at around the 40-50 flights for the year. Not quite a flight a week but really not far off. I would say that 90% of those flights are on British Airways. The other 10% either with budget carriers (because of locations they fly) or they are an…

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Route 66 Texas is an odd one. Obviously in the USA it's one of the biggest states but apart from Route 66 Kansas it's the second shortest part of the route. It's also got a few towns (with the main one being Amerillo) that you go through. However unlike other states there is very little in between. The other main point for Route 66 Texas is that you have hit the half way point in the journey! It's hard to believe that this is the case because the gaps between the things in California get bigger. You certainly feel at times that you've seen more on the trip in the states of Illinois and Missouri. Anyway what does Route 66 Texas have to offer?! Read on to find out.

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If you haven't read Part 1 on Route 66 Oklahoma do it here! Oklahoma City is the state capital for Oklahoma. It's the biggest city in the whole state. As a person from the UK Oklahoma has one thing in my memory which is the tragic bombing of 20+ years ago. We paid a visit to the site which I'll talk about below. Before we got there as we came into the City you see the State Capital building appear on the horizon. With a big towering dome very similar to the one from Illinois State Capitol building it's really imposing as you come into the city. It was built in 1917 and contains a number of key war memorials as a tribute to the fallen soldiers to the World…

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After leaving the smallest state in Kansas Route 66 we head to Route 66 Oklahoma! It was really noticable to see how the states were different. This sounds like an odd statement I know to make but in the way of the towns, the make up of the farm land and just what you saw. As you move further West on the route you see how each different state treats Route 66 and what they have as important. Oklahoma is no different to this. As the famous song goes "Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain" and I really felt that I noticed this that things were more spread out and there was more farming in the state than perhaps than we had seen before. When we went…

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If you've not read about Illinois or Missouri you can read about these parts of the route from the Route 66 master page. We now enter into Kansas. Kansas is the smallest of the Route 66 states and if you didn't stop you could drive it in 10 minutes. However there is lots of reasons to stop! If you've ever seen the Disney film franchise Cars the town of Radiator Springs has had a large amount of influence of both Galena and Baxter Springs. These are the 2 towns you'll drive through in Kansas.

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If you've not read Part 1 of Route 66 Missouri do so here! After you've had a good laugh at all the possible tshirts that you can buy it's time to get back on the road again for the rest of Missouri! You first main town that you come to is Lebabon. Here you'll find a good Route 66 Museum as well as a couple of murals in the town. You then come to another Springfield. This one isn't the state capitol nor the home of the Simpsons - but it has another good museum that's worth having a look at. At this point you're probably thinking that it's all about the Route 66 Museums in every town. It does feel like that at times, but they all have something…

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One of the key ingredients of Route 66 is all the classic Hotels you can stay at. Of course there are many of the normal chains like Holiday Inn which you can stay at but that's not really the point to getting the full on Route 66 experience! There are a load of great Route 66 Hotels to stay at and by no means is this a full on comprehensive list but these are the ones that are worth it. Whilst some people like to just travel Route 66 and stop where they want, these hotels are the popular ones and with that I recommend that you book in advance. They only have a few rooms so it doesn't take much for them to all get booked up! Town: Tucumcari…

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If you've read my Tips and Tricks for Route 66 there is a section about the budget needed for your trip. However this doesn't touch on the details for the money you might spend. It's easy to spend loads and loads - but also do it on a bit of a budget as well. Although we did it the way below it's not a prescription of "how to do it" but just trying to give you an idea of what you might face on the road trip. This trip was taken in 2019 and all prices are based on these rates. You can find my master Route 66 information page here. This is going to be your biggest expense. We booked some of the key ones that we didn't want…

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If you haven't read part 1 of this journey you should go and do this before part 2! Also if you haven't read my Route 66 Tips and Tricks you should do that here! I started and intended that Illinois should be one post but there was just so much of Route 66 Illinois to cover off that I had to split it into 2 parts! So far we've seen lots of garages, a few statues, a prison as well as lots of cars and murals. Part 2 is going to have a LOT of cars, the state capitol and the border to the next state. Sit back and enjoy the read of the next stage of Route 66 Illinois. Springfield is the capital of Illinois. Present-day Springfield was settled…

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