The eleven (11) free maps listed below were hand-built by Tom Herbertson, based on the driving directions provided by Ron Clements in his book RoadTrip America, A Sports Fan’s Guide to Route 66 to be published by Imbrifex Books in August 2021. Route 66 passes through eight states starting in Chicago, Illinois and ending in Santa Monica, California. The maps were built in this East to West orientation and cover the states in this progression: ILLINOIS, MISSOURI, KANSAS, OKLAHOMA, TEXAS, NEW MEXICO, ARIZONA and CALIFORNIA.
To accurately follow the route suggested by Ron, Tom created some more than one map in some of the states.
The icons seen on these maps are based on the RoadTrip America Scenic Side Trips maps. While it was not possible to add all of the sports venues found on Ron’s book on these free maps, all of the insider tips, suggestions and historical information about these remarkable places are available in Ron’s book. However Ron has provided information for visiting some of the key sports venue attractions and those are identified with the “SV” flag icons. If you click on the icons you will find short articles about the places and all of the ones labeled with the “SV” were written by the author. Ron has also written a few other short articles about Route 66 icons he visited while doing the research for this book.
You can use these maps as is, or add your own additional points of interest by registering for a free account on RoadTripAmerica.com. If you don’t already have an account, you can register here. The account is free and allows you to customize, save, and share maps. Please read the instructions below this list for more info on how to use, customize, save, and share your maps.
ILLINOIS
*Chicago to Lexington, Illinois
*Lexington, Illinois to St. Louis, Missouri
MISSOURI
* St Louis, Missouri to Galena, Kansas
KANSAS
*Galena, Kansas to Commerce, Oklahoma
OKLAHOMA
*Commerce, Oklahoma to Edmond, Oklahoma
TEXAS
*Edmond, Oklahoma to Adrian, Texas
NEW MEXICO
*Adrian, Texas to Gallup, New Mexico
ARIZONA
*Gallup, New Mexico to Ash Fork, Arizona
*Ash Fork, Arizona to Needles, California
CALIFORNIA
*Needles to Claremont, California
*Claremont to Santa Monica, California
General Instructions for using these maps
Please note that each map includes the described route from the book and 3-4 of the RTA attractions found along it, (if any have been loaded in this area, by RTA Mapping Contributors). You can add additional attractions from the book or points of interest of your own choosing to the maps. The author of this book, Ron Clements, has added about 85 of the attractions he wrote about so you will see several of mini-articles about sports venues and attractions in these maps.
After registering, you will be able to customize any and all of the 35 maps listed above by navigating to “Advanced Maps” (in the navigation bar at the top of every page) or clicking here.
On the left hand column of the “Advanced Maps” page you will see some tables labeled as follows:
My Maps
My Custom Places
My Routes
My Drawn Routes
RTA Map Library — this is where you will find the list of maps that correspond to the routes in the book.
All the routes described in RoadTrip America A Sports Fan’s Guide to Route 66 include this phrase: SFG66. So, if you wanted to see all of the Routes associated with this book, you could enter SFG66 or Ron Clements in the Keyword Search box. Some of the maps are found in the Central Area and some are from the Western Area. So the first map is named: Cent-SFG66-01-Chicago to Lexington, Illinois. As an example, here is a map from the Western section: West-SFG66-10-Needles to Claremont, California. All of these maps can be found on the RTA Map Center Page in the RTA Library listing. If you click on the blue line under the number next to the word “West” or “Cent” it will open the link to the route.
Some key elements to note:
1. If you click on the blue flag labeled “1” you will find a description of the route and details about long it takes to drive this route.
2. The icons that have little colored flags are RoadTrip Attractions published by RoadTrip American contributing writers. They are not specifically related to Ron Clements’ Route 66 book, but they are in the RTA Custom Maps database of attractions that are of unique interest to road trippers.
You can save this RTA Library map into your personal collection of maps. Here are some general instructions about how to do that:
To modify a RTA Library Map and Save it as one of your Personal Maps:
Click on the number link. At this point, you can add your personal Custom Places and then save whatever is on your screen as a map. Just click the “Save Map” button. The “Save Map” button is located about 20 lines below the map pane. From the left-hand side of the page you will see “Clear Map” “Map name” (this is where you enter the name you wish to save) “Map Tags” (this is used to make the search function work better) and “Save Map”. Once you have added your Map Name and clicked the Save Map button, the map’s name will now appear in the “My Maps” box in the left-hand column.
To create a new map based on the original RTA Library Map + some new places that you’d like to add, you will be using the RTA Custom Maps “Waypoints” system. The Waypoints system is explained in greater detail on the Advanced Maps page — look for MAP INSTRUCTIONS.
Once you have added any new Custom Places, you would save the new map that you just created. Note: The resulting blue line route might not follow the exact route of the RTA Library Maps because there is a limitation on the number of waypoints available (23 waypoints plus the beginning and ending locations) but you can use the RTA flags and your new Custom Places markers as those waypoints and choose your new starting and ending locations. The resulting map will be very similar to the original RTA Library Map. (For more information about using the “Waypoint” system, see post #1 in this thread.)
And if you need help with any of this, please get in touch with us via email to map.center.support@roadtripamerica.com. You can also join the map discussion on the Trip Advice Planning Forum.
