Sometime in the 1980s, Route 66 became an international phenomenon in a way that surprised even its most dedicated American boosters. German, Japanese, Australian, and British travelers started showing up on the road in large numbers — renting cars in Chicago or St. Louis or Albuquerque and driving the old alignment westward, stopping at the places they’d seen in movies and read about in books.
For European travelers especially, Route 66 represented something that didn’t quite have an equivalent at home: a road that ran through a landscape of that scale, with that much visible history, where you could drive for hours and still not have crossed a national border. The American West, seen through the windshield of a rented car, was exactly what the mythology had promised it would be.
The road’s international reputation was built partly by music and film and partly by the specific way American popular culture had exported itself throughout the postwar period. You could grow up in Stuttgart or Osaka having never been to America and still know what a Route 66 motel sign looked like. The visual grammar of the road had become global.
This created an interesting dynamic in the towns that benefited from international tourism. The visitors were often more knowledgeable about Route 66 history than local residents. A German photographer who’d been planning his Route 66 trip for three years might know more about the architectural history of Seligman than someone who’d grown up there.
The road became, in some sense, more alive in other countries than in the stretches of America it actually ran through. It had traveled farther than its asphalt.
We are offering licences for ROUTE 66® Beer in specific territories. An invitation to others to become part of this story. To carry a piece of the road with them and to contribute to the story. We will share a percentage of royalties with Route 66 associations to keep the story alive.
The journey continues. This story is brought to you by ROUTE 66® BEER. Find us at ROUTE66BEER.COM
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