On June 6, after years of planning, the Route 66 Centennial Caravan officially hit the road. After a kickoff event the night before at the Will Rogers Ranch, an iconic site whose house and stables were destroyed in the Palisades Fire in 2025, the core group of 15 cars (including representatives from eight statewide preservation organizations and international representation from the Dutch Route 66 Association) left for what is a twenty-day-long parade.

Organized by the Route 66 Road Ahead Partnership with support from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the caravan includes representatives from statewide organizations dedicated to promoting and preserving Route 66. Members of the public are invited to participate for as long as they wish.

For the next three weeks, we’ll be checking in with the caravan and sharing the celebrations that give each community a special moment to mark 100 years of the Mother Road.

Don’t forget to use the live map to track the Caravan and follow the National Trust @preserveroute66 and @savingplaces on Instagram for daily updates.

Now check out these highlights as the Caravan traveled from Santa Monica, California to Kingman, Arizona from June 6-9, 2026.

Traveling along for the full twenty-day Caravan are three members of the National Trust Staff. Rhys Martin, the manager of the Route 66 program, is someone who finds joy in everything related to Route 66. In addition to his work with the National Trust, he is also President of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association and a Board Member of the Road Ahead Partnership. If you are meeting (or driving along with) the Caravan at any point, make sure to say hello!

Kate Lenzer, senior GIS manager, and Allison Lehn, GIS Analyst for the National Trust, are taking on mapping the entire Mother Road and its various alignments. As they wander off the beaten path, they’ll be doing some essential documentation work needed to further preserve Route 66. Their specialized GIS mapping car will capture 360-degree Streetview-style imagery along the entire journey

This work is made possible by the generosity of David and Julia Uihlein.

In California participants travelled along the historic road seeing some of the best Southern California has to offer. They stopped at iconic locations in Los Angeles, such Galco’s Old World Grocery and Chicken Boy, before ending Day 1 in Pasadena where they were met by the vibrant sound of the University of Southern California’s Marching Band.

Then it was on through roadside attractions such as Bottle Tree Ranch, Rancho Cucamonga, Roy’s Café, and Ludlow Ruins before heading into Arizona for the official handoff of the Route 66 Caravan on Day 4.

As the Caravan had their first full day in Arizona, they made their way past Pinnacles and Sitgreaves Pass before ending in Kingman to explore “chillier” sites amidst the heat, like Cool Springs Station before closing out the day with a sweet treat of Ice Cream at Scoops on Route 66.