It’s the 100th anniversary of Route 66. The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently created an AI version of the retro route.
It got us thinking about the classic American road trip. The candy-colored cars. The vacancy signs above motels. Mom-and-pop gas stations. You get it.
Now we’re on the hunt for historic road trips to and from Charleston. We’re talking Polaroid photos of local landmarks, memories of rest stops, and snapshots of tourist traps outside of town.
Send in your road trip memories.
We’ll go first
Editor Jess here. My family lived in Charleston for years, but moved to Colorado in the 1960s.Here is a photo of them road tripping back to the Holy City in the 1970s.
I asked them how they got there, and they couldn’t remember the specifics. “We surely traveled Route 66, but the magic of our family trips is that the route was secondary.”
By my research, here’s what the trip would have looked like:
- The route: Route 66 was still kicking (it wasn’t decommissioned until 1985), but it was already being replaced piece-by-piece by I-40, I-44, and I-55.
- The detour: A dedicated roadtripper could still burn rubber along the route by dipping down to Oklahoma, then heading to St. Louis.
- The sights: Along the way, they would have seen neon-lit diners, old motor courts, and classic signage.
- The total distance: ~2,040 miles. A direct Denver to Charleston route would’ve been up to 1,750 miles, so the Route 66 detour added about 300 extra miles — and a lot more roadside Americana.
