Arizona Route 66 Road Trip Attractions

Arizona has the honor of having the longest stretch of Historic Route 66 in the nation.  While there is not much left of Route 66 in the eastern part of the state, western Arizona has approximately 140 miles of uninterrupted Mother Road stretching from Topock to Seligman.  To celebrate Route 66’s 90th anniversary, we took a road trip along Arizona’s Route 66 and visited Route 66 attractions and towns.

Arizona Route 66 Topock to Kingman

As soon we crossed the California / Arizona border we hopped onto Route 66.  At over 50 miles, this is a pretty long stretch of Route 66 road.  The biggest Route 66 attraction along this section is Oatman.  There is a lot to do in Oatman, including touring an authentic gold mine, walking through the historic town, and seeing an old-time gunfight in the street.  Be sure to visit the Oatman Hotel, where Clark Gable and Carol Lombard spent their wedding night, and its dollar bill plastered bar.  Probably the most surprising thing you’ll see in Oatman is the wild burros that freely roam the streets.  The burros are friendly and are protected by federal law as symbols of the American West.  This part of Route 66, especially past Oatman, is curvy, so drive carefully, especially at night.

Another point of interest along this section of Arizona Route 66 is the Shaffer Fish Bowl Spring, approximately five miles east of Oatman.  Stairs lead up the hill on the side of the road to a small rock “bowl” which collects water that seeps through the rock from a spring. 

Arizona Route 66 Kingman to Seligman

Route 66 continues through Kingman, which is also off Highway 40, and then veers away from the highway for another 80 plus miles.  

Related: Things to Do in Kingman Arizona on Old Route 66

The first roadside stop along this stretch of Route 66 is Antares Point, home of Giganticus Headicus.  Why this 14-foot tall Tiki head was placed on Route 66, we don’t know, but it is definitely the type of kitschy Americana that makes a US road trip special.  Giganticus Headicus is painted pink in October for breast cancer awareness month.   The rest of the year it is green.

A few miles past Antares Point is Hackberry, home of the famous Route 66 Hackberry General Store.  Outside are gas pumps and old cars from the Route 66 era.  It is both a store and a museum of the Mother Road.

Beyond Hackberry is a town that used to be, Valentine.  The Valentine post office was famous for its heart-shaped postmark.  Today visitors can visit the Valentine Indian School site, the remains of one of the many Indian schools in existence between 1870 and 1930, boarding schools which the children of Native Americans were required to attend, leaving their homes and families behind.  Also in Valentine is Keepers of the Wild, a rescue sanctuary for exotic wild animals that are rescued from or surrendered by private owners.

Other stops along Route 66 from Kingman to Seligman include Truxton, Peach Springs, and the Grand Canyon Caverns.

Arizona Route 66 Seligman to Flagstaff

Seligman is where Route 66 returns to close proximity to Highway 40.  Seligman has shops and restaurants and is a great stop for Route 66 souvenir shopping.  Somehow Seligman gained the right to proclaim itself the birthplace of Historic Route 66 and is the first town along this longest remaining stretch of Route 66 from Seligman to Topock.

Heading east from Seligman, Route 66 is also Highway 40, so you’re back on the freeway.  You can get off the Highway and follow a small length of Historic Route 66 through Williams, the last town in Arizona to be bypassed.  Williams was finally bypassed by the freeway in 1985.  Williams is a great little Route 66 town to visit, filled with many blocks of restaurants and shops and Route 66 memorabilia.  During Route 66 days, Williams was also a popular gateway for travelers wanting to explore the Grand Canyon.

Arizona Route 66 Flagstaff to Lupton

East past Flagstaff there is very little opportunity to drive along the original Route 66.  However, there are quite a few fun detours between Flagstaff and the Arizona state line that Route 66 travelers would have enjoyed during their travels as well.

Related: History and Route 66: Things to Do in Flagstaff in One Day

One of these unusual detours is Meteor Crater, the world’s best-preserved meteorite impact site.  The meteor crater is what you would imagine, a really big hole in the ground.  The crater is one mile in diameter and over 550 feet deep.  The visitor center offers a movie, exhibits, and a piece of meteor rock.  After the visitor center, join a guided rim tour and learn more about this crazy phenomenon.  On the way to Meteor Crater make a stop at Twin Arrows for a Route 66 photo opp. 

The next piece of Old Highway 66 travels through Winslow, Arizona, made famous by the Eagles song Take It Easy.  Eagles fans will want to be sure to stop at Standin’ on the Corner Park, complete with flatbed Ford.  Another must-see in Winslow is La Posada Hotel & Gardens, an old Harvey House that has been lovingly restored into a gorgeous hotel with one of the most delicious restaurants, the Turquoise Room.

Travelers might think the Wigwam Motel of Holbrook looks familiar.  That’s because the Cozy Cone Motel in the Disney / Pixar movie Cars was modeled after the Wigwam Motels of Route 66.  The Wigwam Motel of Holbrook makes sure you see the resemblance.  Not only do they have old classic cars in front of reception and the teepee-shaped cabins, they also have a vehicle straight from Cars out front, Sir Tow Mater.  Holbrook’s Wigwam Motel has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2002, listed as Wigwam Village #6.  A stay at Holbrook’s Wigwam Motel will allow you to respond to the question, “Have you slept in a wigwam lately?” with a resounding “Yes!”

Arizona has a National Park along Route 66, the Petrified Forest National Park.  The Petrified Forest gets its name from the petrified wood that can be found throughout the park.  Millions of years ago, logs were washed away and buried in mud and debris, quickly cutting off oxygen and allowing for an extremely slow decay process.  Minerals were absorbed into the wood, which then crystallized, causing the wood to be replaced with quartz.  The petrified wood looks just like logs and stumps and sections of tree trunk, except they are rainbows of color.  The Painted Desert Rim Drive also passes through a Painted Desert.

Arizona has so many Route 66 attractions, it’s hard to see them all in one road trip.  A road trip along Arizona's Route 66 is like strolling down memory lane, except it is the memory lane of families past who took this road trip so many decades ago. 

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Three of the Best Mexican Restaurants in Yuma Arizona

As residents of San Diego, when we hear someone say they “ate at the best Mexican restaurant” in some state in the middle of the country, or even in the middle of California, we nod and smile, but we sometimes have our doubts about how good that Mexican food could have really been.  With our close proximity to the Mexican border, we know what good Mexican food tastes like.  We’ve also learned from our travels that while indeed there are some really good Mexican restaurants around the country, Mexican food is one of those ethnic foods that somehow loses its traditional and authentic flavors the farther away it is made from its homeland, and therefore there are a lot of bad Mexican restaurants.  On a recent weekend trip to Yuma, a city also close to the Mexican-American border, we decided to take on the challenge of finding the best Mexican restaurants in Yuma.  We ate at four and, while all were good, three of them made our list.  These three Yuma Mexican restaurants are completely different from each other and special in their own ways.

El Buen Taquito

We drove from San Diego to Yuma on a Friday night after work.  Since it’s only a two-and-a-half-hour drive, I always forget about that pesky time change.  We arrived in town at 9:30 at night and El Buen Taquito is one of the few places open until 10:00.  As we pulled into the parking lot, we were surprised to see that more than half the tables were filled and there was a line for takeaway orders.

El Buen Taquito started as a taco truck, but now has a storefront . . . sort of.  It’s more of a taco truck with covered patio dining.  The food is still cooked in the truck, but now there are waitresses to seat you and take your order.  Metal café tables and chairs are on the patio, some under the roof and others in the open under umbrellas.

There are four items on the menu: flautas, tacos dorado (“folded” tacos), tostadas, and sopes.  You can also order a cup of consommé.  There are sodas, but also drink coolers filled with horchata and natural pineapple water. 

While the menu is simple, they make these four items exceptionally well.  I’m always amazed by how good a potato taco can be, and potato flautas are just as good, soft on the inside and super crunchy on the outside, with just the right ratio of potato and tortilla.  The tacos and tostadas are also delightfully crunchy and the sopes are the perfect chewy texture.  What puts these items over the top are the toppings of crunchy lettuce, tomato, a generous amount of queso fresco, and the surprising pop of flavor from the pickled cabbage.  Add a squeeze of lemon and the vinegary salsa with a kick, and you’ve got a tasty and inexpensive meal.

The Chile Pepper and Mr. G’s

The Chile Pepper and Mr. G’s are a two-for-one as, even though they’re across town from each other, they have the same owners and the same menu.  On our first visit to Yuma we stopped at The Chile Pepper because our friends who used to live in Yuma told us The Chile Pepper had THE BEST BEAN AND CHEESE BURRITOS EVER! 

The Chile Pepper was opened in Yuma in 1954 by Juan and Bessie Gutierrez.  In 1960, they opened La Casa Gutierrez, which has since closed, in their grandmother’s home.  In 1963, they expanded again with Mr. G Drive-In.  The restaurants are still owned by the Gutierrez family.  The restaurants are fast food type restaurants where you stand in line, order your food, and pick it up when you’re number is called.

If you’re staying in or near downtown Yuma, The Chile Pepper is a bit of a drive and out of the way.  Mr. G’s has the same menu and is much closer to Yuma’s historic downtown.  Both restaurants have a big menu, but the bean and cheese burrito is a well-known staple of Yuma.  Some say they can tell the difference between the burrito from The Chile Pepper and Mr. G’s, but they’re made from the same recipe of Grandma Gutierrez and if a difference can be told, it probably isn’t by the average tourist.

Duron’s El Zarape Grill

When you drive up to Duron’s El Zarape Grill and see the bright green stucco exterior, it just looks like the kind of Mexican restaurant you want to visit.  Duron’s El Zarape Grill is a super casual Mexican eatery, but it is a sit-down restaurant with a full bar.

Duron’s El Zarape Grill opened in October 2012 and is family owned and run.  Pancho Duron inherited his cooking skills from his mother Rosalia Ochoa, who grew up in the Sonoran region of Mexico.  The menu features Sonoran cuisine and they proudly advertise that they use Certified Angus Beef and local produce.

The menu includes Mexican restaurant standards like burritos, tacos, and enchiladas, but Duron’s El Zarape Grill’s specialties are seafood, like shrimp and pulpo, and steak.  I ordered the Arrachera Sonorense, which is a skirt steak with a cheese-stuffed California chili, charro beans, and grilled onions.  The dish was very fresh, the steak was perfectly cooked without gristle or chewiness, and those beans!  The charro beans were soupy and had flavor and heat.  As Romeo knows I rarely finish a meal, he was greedily eyeing my beans the entire time, mentally willing me not to finish them so he could have the rest.  Rome’s dish of carnitas and buche was also superb.

We can’t wait to return to Yuma to try more Mexican restaurants to see if we can add to our list of the best Mexican restaurants in Yuma, but we’ll have a hard time as we’ll just want to return to these three great Mexican restaurants.

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Preserved History Sites to See in Yuma

We visited Yuma for the second time, this time to attend Yuma Lettuce Days.  We had already crossed a lot of the things to do in Yuma off our list when we explored Yuma’s historic districts, but one thing we hadn’t done on our first visit to Yuma was visit the Sanguinetti House Museum, so we decided to add that to our itinerary.  Through our visit to the museum, a historic walking tour offered by the museum, and our stay at the Historic Coronado Motor Hotel, we learned more about the great job the city of Yuma has done in preserving many of its historic sites.

E. F. Sanguinetti was called the “merchant prince of Yuma.”  He was of Italian descent and born in California.  He was the consummate gentleman, always wearing three-piece suits and top hats even though he lived in the middle of the desert.  When Sanguinetti came to Yuma, he immediately saw the needs of Yuma and created businesses to fill those needs.  He quickly gained wealth and influence.  He brought stores to Yuma and invented the “cash and carry” system of walking through a store, picking the things you want off the shelves, purchasing them at the cash register, and carrying them home.  Previously Yuma residents would go to a store, order from a catalog, and wait for their purchases to be delivered, possibly months later.

The original adobe home was built on Madison Avenue in the 1870s.  Sanguinetti purchased the two-room house with lean-to kitchen in 1890.  The original house had dirt floors and a reed and mud room with muslin draped under the ceiling to catch any pieces or parts that fell from the roof.    Sanguinetti married and added on to the home, one room at a time, as his family grew. 

A tour of the Sanguinetti home has two parts.  One visits the original portion of the adobe home which is where the Sanguinetti’s dined.  Sanguinetti held many dinner parties in his home and dined with businessmen, serving nice meals on fancy china.  Each dinner ended with Manhattans.  The other part of the tour visits the newer portions of the home and features the history and stories of Yuma.

We joined one of the Sanguinetti House Museum’s Historic Downtown Yuma Walking Tours led by Steve Cook.  Tours start and end at the museum.  The museum is located in Yuma’s Brinley Historic District, so named because Madison Avenue used to be Brinley Street.  This area of town used to be filled with adobe homes.  Just two doors up from the museum is the oldest adobe home in Yuma, which was built in 1899.  Only a few of Yuma’s adobe homes still exist because all the adobes near Main Street washed away when the Colorado River flooded the town.  Adobes like the Sanguinetti house survived because they are on slightly higher ground.

We learned on our walking tour that Yuma has 54 properties and places that are on the National Register of Historic Places, like the San Carlos Hotel.  The San Carlos Hotel used to be popular with the Hollywood type and it was also a honeymoon hotel as weddings were big business in Yuma.  Military troops were trained in Yuma for World War II.  After fighting they returned to Yuma.  Yuma was very conservative and a couple couldn’t register in a hotel unless they were married.  Luckily for anxious couples, Yuma didn’t require a blood test or a waiting time period, and there were a number of wedding chapels.  On the corner of Madison and 1st Street is one of these remaining chapels, the Golden Wedding Bell Marriage Chapel, which operated 1940 to 1946.  The building was originally Yuma’s first pharmacy from 1891 to 1914 and then in the 1920s was a Chinese laundry and opium den.

We learned about how goods came to Yuma in the past.  They were first brought by steamboat to the Quartermaster’s Depot.  Then the train came to town.  The original trains that came to Yuma were steam trains which used 100 gallons to travel one mile.  The Colorado River provided a lot of water, but that water had a lot of silt in it.  Settling tanks were built to clean the water for the steam trains and for drinking water.  Before the settling tanks was the Blaisdell Slow Sand Filter Washing Machine, which did the same thing and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.  The water washing machine was invented by Hiram Blaisdell to filter sand from the river to deliver drinking water to homes.

Another of Yuma’s landmarks on the National Register of Historic Places is the Ocean-to Ocean Bridge.    The bridge was completed in 1915 and was the first vehicular bridge over the Colorado River for over a thousand miles.  It also made it easier for people to travel to San Diego for the Panama-California Exposition.  During the Dust Bowl armed guards made migrators prove they had enough money before crossing the bridge.  Some who couldn’t cross took up residence at the Yuma Territorial Prison.

During our walking tour we saw the St. Thomas Indian Mission across the river.  We decided to walk across the Ocean-to-Ocean Bridge to get a closer view of the mission.  Technically, this mission is not in Yuma, or even Arizona.  It is in Winterhaven, California.  However, this border did not exist when the original La Purisima Concepcion Mission was built in 1780.  The mission was destroyed only one year later during an Indian massacre which killed both Fathers.  The present church was built in 1922 on the site of the original mission.

Another of Yuma’s preserved historic sites is the Historic Coronado Motor Hotel, which also happened to be the hotel at which we stayed for our weekend getaway to Yuma.  The hotel was first built in 1938 and had 14 rooms.  It was the first connected hotel in Arizona and was the oldest Best Western still in existence (68 years) until it recently became an independent property.

The Historic Coronado Motor Hotel was, and still is, owned by the Peach family.  John Peach’s parents came to the United States from Czechoslovakia through Ellis Island.  His father John Peach was a tailor, and it was suggested to him to come out to Yuma as there were no tailors in Yuma.  While John Peach ran a tailor shop, Marie Peach managed a hotel for room and free board.  In 1938, they built the Peach Auto Court in what was at the time the outskirts of Yuma.

The Casa de Coronado Museum is a museum in the building that used to function as the home of the Peach family and the original lobby of the hotel.  If you ask in advance, Yvonne Peach will provide a tour of the museum.  The museum is filled with so much Yuma memorabilia, like items from when Bob Hope would come to town and perform at the USO, as well as the Peach family’s furniture, appliances, and photos.

We loved staying in this hotel with so much Yuma history.  It’s an old-style hotel but the rooms have been renovated.  When you first check in you’ll be greeted with the special touch of a towel animal on your bed.  The bed was comfortable and the bathroom felt more like a home bathroom than a hotel.  The hotel is in close proximity to Yuma’s historic downtown, which means you can buy a bottle of Yuma wine at Yuma’s Main Squeeze and bring it back to enjoy in the room over the weekend.

Guests of the hotel have breakfast included, which is served at the Yuma Landing Bar & Grill.  Some more of the Peach family’s Yuma memorabilia can be found in the restaurant.  The restaurant is called Yuma Landing because it is on the site of the place the first person to land an airplane in Arizona under its own power touched down.  A monument to Robert Grant Fowler is outside.

For a town that people usually only drive through or use as a quick rest stop, Yuma has a surprising amount of history and things to do and see. 

Thank you to Visit Yuma for hosting our weekend in Yuma, Arizona and making this post possible.  As always, all opinions are my own.

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Things to Do in Kingman Arizona on Old Route 66

When we were planning our short Route 66 road trip from California to Arizona, we needed to decide in which cities to spend the night.  We wanted to stay in cities that had Route 66 history, so Kingman, Arizona seemed like a good choice.  After all, it is one of the cities mentioned in Nat King Cole’s (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.  Little did we know that there are so many things to do in Kingman, Arizona!  What we thought was just going to be a couple hours spent in this Route 66 town turned into almost a full day. 

Related: Happy 90th Anniversary to Route 66! and History and Route 66: Things to Do in Flagstaff in One Day

What to Do and See in Kingman Arizona

Historic Kingman Powerhouse

We started our exploration of Kingman at the Historic Kingman Powerhouse.  The powerhouse now houses the Kingman Visitor Center, the Powerhouse Route 66 Museum, and the Route 66 Electric Vehicle Museum.  The powerhouse and its museums are dog-friendly.  Be sure to talk to Diane Silverman, Go Kingman’s Information Supervisor, for information and suggestions about what to see in Kingman.  Then head upstairs to visit the Powerhouse Route 66 Museum, or watch the film about the history of Route 66 first.

The Powerhouse Route 66 Museum tells the story of Route 66, starting with the development of a westerly route first developed in the 1850s to make emigration to the west easier along a weather-proof route that was also north enough to bypass the Rebel sympathizers in Arizona. The story continues through the Great Depression and the time of the dust bowl, when Midwestern farmers left their farms during the drought and came west along Route 66, the Mother Road, for a better life.  Route 66 was also part of the recovery from the Great Depression, as the New Deal provided jobs to road gangs during the 1930s when Route 66 became completely paved from Chicago to Los Angeles.  The final exhibits feature Route 66 like it was when it was a popular route for long, leisurely family road trips, before its demise caused by the opening of the interstate.

The Route 66 Electric Vehicle Museum is on the first floor of the powerhouse.  It displays a number of vehicles both old and new.  One of the modern vehicles is the Buckeye Bullet 2.5, which clocked 320 miles per hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats on August 24, 2011.

Locomotive Park

Across the street from the Historic Kingman Powerhouse is the Locomotive Park.  This small park features the historical monument Steam Engine #3759, a locomotive that was built in 1928 and ran the Santa Fe Railway Company passenger route between Los Angeles and Kansas City, with a water stop in Kingman.  Dogs are not permitted in this park, but a visit to the park doesn’t take very long and there are shaded parking spots nearby.

Historic Downtown Kingman Walking Tour

We picked up a map of the Historic Downtown Walking Tour from the Kingman Visitor Center.  The walking tour has 32 points of interest ranging from museums like the Mohave Museum of History & Arts, which features the history of Northwestern Arizona, to historic buildings like the W. G. Blakely House, an adobe built in 1887.  25 of the sites are on the National Registry of Historic Places.  Most of the sites on the walking tour map are within the 12 block downtown area, but a few are a little farther afield and are better visited by car than by foot.

Hotel Beale once hosted passengers riding the rails of the Santa Fe railroad, and later travelers of Route 66.  The hotel was built in 1900 and purchased by Tom Devine in 1906.  Tom Devine was the father of actor Andy Devine, a comic character actor who was born in Flagstaff but grew up in Kingman.  The part of Route 66 that runs through Kingman is now named after the actor.  Be sure to look up at the Hotel Beale neon sign that proudly proclaims that the hotel was air cooled.  You can get a shot of the sign as well as a modern Kingman feature, the Running Hare sculpture by Don Gialanella.

The Little Red Schoolhouse was Kingman’s second schoolhouse.  The schoolhouse was built in 1896 and is a red brick building built in the Victorian style.  It is the only remaining pre-1900 public building.  It now serves as the city’s municipal court.

The Bonelli House was built by George and Effie Tarr Bonelli, prominent citizens of Kingman.  The house was built in 1915 with local volcanic stone in the Anglo-Territorial style.  The house can be toured during the week.

Kingman Railroad Museum

Railroads and Route 66 go hand-in-hand.  Before Route 66 allowed motorists to make the trip between Chicago and Los Angeles, travelers could take the train, as the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad route between Chicago and Illinois was completed in 1885.  For a little railroad history and kitsch, we visited the Kingman Railroad Museum.  Inside you can look at model railroads, and just outside the window you can see real trains fly by about every 15 minutes. 

White Cliffs Wagon Trail

A unique site in Kingman is the White Cliffs Wagon Trail.  A short hike from the road leads to wagon tracks that were cut deep into the stone in the late 1800s.  The wagon trail was used to transport ore from the Stockton Hill mines to the Kingman railroad.  Along the side of the tracks are depressions in the stone that were used for stubbing posts and ropes which kept the wagons from flying down the hill.

Kingman Army Airfield Museum

In addition to Route 66 history, Kingman also has military history.  The Kingman Army Airfield was founded during World War II to train aerial gunners.  Now the Kingman airport is the site of the Kingman Army Airfield Museum run by the Kingman Army Airfield Historical Society.  Exhibits include artifacts and photos of the history of the airfield, and, of course, large model airplanes.  We received a tour of the museum and also learned an interesting fact that was new to us.  When airplane travel was first possible, travelers would travel cross country using a combination of airplane flights and train rides.  Kingman was the last airport on the way to the West Coast.

Kingman Wine Country

Using the term wine country might be a bit of an exaggeration at this time, but if things work out well, sometime in the near future Kingman will have a wine country, and a really good one at that.  Right now there are two wineries open to visitors, Cella Winery and Stetson Winery.  Cella’s wines are made by hand on property with grapes either grown in Kingman, Arizona or Temecula, California.  Cella Winery’s owner and winemaker comes from an Italian family and grew up making wine.  Stetson Winery is a large tasting room and event center.  Their wines are cowboy and Route 66 themed.  Currently, most of their wines are made from grapes from California and Southern Arizona, but they have a Zinfandel made with grapes grown on their Kingman property and plan to release more locally grown wines.

Related: Get Your Sips on Route 66: Kingman Arizona Wineries

Desert Diamond Distillery

Wine isn’t the only alcoholic beverage being created in Kingman.  Kingman also has its very own distillery.  Just a few blocks away from the Kingman Army Airfield Museum, you can find Desert Diamond Distillery near the airfield.  Desert Diamond Distillery is a craft distillery making rum of the white, dark, and barrel aged variety, as well as vodka.  All of their spirits start with sugar cane molasses.  Visitors can have a tasting flight, take a behind-the-scenes tour, or relax with a cocktail.

Related: A Tasting Tour of Kingman's Craft Desert Diamond Distillery

Mr. D’z Route 66 Diner

Since we were taking a Route 66 road trip, it only felt right to have Route 66 style meals.  Mr. D’z Route 66 Diner is the perfect restaurant in Kingman for a Route 66 meal.  Mr. D’z wasn’t around during Route 66 years, but it is the type of diner you would have found along Route 66 back in the day.    I highly recommend the Popsicle Float, an ice cream float made with orange soda and vanilla ice cream.

Kingman Arizona Hotel

There are a number of hotels in Kingman, Arizona, but if you’re visiting Kingman on a Route 66 road trip, you have to stay in a Route 66 motel.  When we arrived at the Hill Top Motel we knew immediately we were staying at the perfect place.  The first thing that greeted us was Hill Top Motel’s classic neon sign glowing red and green.  It looks exactly like the roadside hotels from movies of the 1950s and 60s, one story and you park right outside your door.  Of course, it would have been more authentic if we had been driving a Ford Thunderbird.

Hill Top Motel is a motel, an inexpensive one at that, so don’t expect luxury accommodations.  While not luxury, the accommodations are spacious, clean, and delightfully retro.  Rooms have block walls and wood paneling decorated with southwestern art.  Our room had a comfortable bed, a table for two, and a microwave and refrigerator.  Outside was a pool, though the weather was far too cold for taking a dip.  Since we were traveling with our dogs, we were happy that this Kingman hotel has a pet-friendly policy.

The Hill Top Motel is situated right on Route 66 a short distance away from the center of town, which means it’s nice and quiet.  The hotel has a panoramic view of the Hualapai Mountains.  As Kingman is a Route 66 town, that means the train comes through town, but the train tracks are far enough away from the hotel that the sound of the train isn’t disturbing at all, but rather provides a relaxing, white-noise kind of rumble.

Another great thing about the Hill Top Motel is that it is family owned and run.  Be sure to take a few minutes to talk to the owner Dennis Schroeder and Herberta Schroeder.  They will tell you about the area and suggest a lot of great things to see, not only in Kingman, but along Route 66 as well.  Herberta is a photographer with a gift for lightning photography (you can see some of her images on her website Windswept Images), and she also creates postcards featuring Kingman and Route 66.  

If you have the time, we suggest staying in Kingman for two nights so you can spend an entire day experiencing all the things to do in Kingman and then have a full day to enjoy all of the Route 66 stops past Kingman the next day.

Thank you to Go Kingman for hosting the Kingman portion of our trip along Route 66 and making this post possible.  As always, all opinions are my own.

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