Route 66 (Chicago-Albuquerque) – Guided Motorcycle Tour

Depart the UK on your chosen scheduled flight to Chicago, Illinois. Upon arrival, you will be taken to your hotel, allocated by EagleRider, where you spend the first night of your adventure.

Nicknamed the ‘Paris of the Prairie’, Chicago is the biggest and most exciting of the Great Lake cities. It includes a stunning skyline along Lake Michigan, and a gamut of top-rated museums, restaurants and cafes, and innumerable bars and nightclubs that pay homage to the city’s strong jazz and blues heritage. Tonight you will get to meet your fellow riders and Tour Guides at an Orientation Meeting at the tour hotel, followed by a great Welcome Dinner to kick-off your dream Route 66 journey!

This morning you pick up your bike and are off to the ultimate American road trip. The legendary Route 66 begins at the doorstep of a EagleRider location, cutting through the state of Illinois before running all the way to the Pacific Coast. From Chicago you head south along the Pontiac Trail, the original name for this bit of the road here, passing through Joliet, checking out the Launching Pad Giant, stopping at the amazing RT 66 Museum in Pontiac and generally getting a feel for the rubber on the Mother Road.

Today you’ll head towards St. Louis! You will stay primarily on the 2-lane sections of the Mother Road, traversing cornfields and small towns that represent the heartland of America. Your arrival into St. Louis will be over the Chain of Rocks Bridge, the original bridge where RT 66 crossed the Mississippi River. Enjoy the short ride today into the “Gateway to the West,” St. Louis. This amazing city rests along the shores of the mighty Mississippi River and is home to some of the best live music and BBQ ribs in the country.

Try to get up early to walk across the street today and enjoy an early morning view of the St. Louis Arch and Mississippi River before you hit the road. You’ll quickly leave the city in mirrors as we settle in to enjoy the rolling Missouri hills that make this area so beautiful and fun to ride in. You will stop and see the famous World’s Largest Rocking Chair in Fanning, wind your way on the twisting roads of Devil’s Elbow, and stop at other Route 66 icons. Tonight you will enjoy a stay in Joplin, a city that was hit very hard in 2011 by a massive tornado. Maybe tonight you’ll hang with the locals and hear some amazing stories about what it was like to be in the eye of a massive tornado!

Today is all about the route! From Joplin you will head west through the hills and horse country through Oklahoma, crossing Miami, Claremore and Catoosa, home of the legendary Blue Whale before passing through Tulsa, You will also go through the reservations of several Native American tribes. In the 1830s, much of this land was considered “unusable” by the Federal Government, so various Indian tribes were “settled” there after colonisation, including the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee. This evening you will stay in Oklahoma City, the heart and soul of Route 66.!

This morning you’ll travel along some of the oldest stretches of Oklahoma’s Route 66. Once the land of vast buffalo herds, this section of 66 traverses some of the great cattle trails which were used in the 1860s to drive herds of cattle from Texas up to the railhead in Abilene, Kansas. You will ride along a section of the Chisholm Trial, which passes through Yukon and El Reno, and stop at the amazing Route 66 Museum in Clinton. After lunch you will cross the border into the Texas Panhandle, the southernmost portion of the Great Plains. At the Big Texan Steakhouse in Amarillo you have the opportunity to enjoy the best steaks in Texas, guaranteed!

Today you leave Texas and are on your way into “The Land of Enchantment”, New Mexico. After passing through the world famous Cadillac Ranch, you’ll stop at the midway point of RT 66 in Adrian, Texas! And how about the ghost town of Glen Rio, where you can stand with one foot in New Mexico and the other one in Texas? From there you enter the land of the Comanche Indians, where mesas, mountains, cactus and pines define the landscape as we head up into the High Plains and altitude of Santa Fe in central New Mexico. Santa Fe is one of America’s oldest and most beautiful cities, and will be your base for your last night of the tour.

Today your exciting trip will conclude in Albuquerque, New Mexico where you will drop off your EagleRider bikes in the morning. You may choose to extend your stay or discover more of New Mexico. Otherwise, you make your own way to Albuquerque and check in for your flight back to the UK.