Route 66 in California: Desert Towns & Mother Road Stops
Route 66 in California is the last stretch of the Mother Road, running about 345 miles from the Colorado River at Needles to the Pacific at Santa Monica, according to the National Park Service. It packs the whole Route 66 story into one state: empty desert highway, a neon-lit ghost town, a silver-mining boomtown, and a pier at the end. And 2026 is the road’s centennial year, a hundred years since U.S. Route 66 was designated on November 11, 1926.
