Route 66 Navigation

I truly wanna love this app, but it has frustrating downsides. It would frequently lock up and on a number of locations it took us to the wrong place. I found myself frustrated at it and switching between Google and Apple maps in its place. What this app is really good at is giving you ideas for places to go, but some of those places no longer exist and haven’t been updated. I wouldn’t pay for the year but would pay for the week just to see if you like it. What we ended up doing was finding out where we were going to go with this app and then making a guide in Apple maps for each individual state on the route of things we wanted to see. Sometimes I would have this app open on my phone and use my wife’s phone to get the route, but watch this one for sights along the way. That was the ideal usage. Again, not trying to dog the app, but it does have its limitations and is quite expensive for what it does. One thing it is helpful for is also finding the roads that are route 66 but it often gets confused even when the maps are download. One thing that I think needs to be improved is to be able to go through the list and select individual points to include in your own personal trip instead of having to look at every stop on the way. It would also be helpful for the creator to include a Lifetime subscription for those who use it often.

We just completed our second part of the Route. We did IL to KS two years ago and this time visited a couple things in IL we couldn’t get to last time and then went straight to Kansas to do the Kansas to Santa Fe, NM section. The app has improved greatly in the two years. I HIGHLY recommend purchasing the maps to download on your phone since there are big sections you will have no cell signal to help your navigation. We downloaded the app on both of our phones and used one phone for the navigation and the other to look up attractions that were coming up so we could plan stops we wanted to make. It also gives you a pop up of the attractions on the navigation and what side of the road it will be on. Only thing we wished was that we could do was zoom out of the map. Also would be helpful for more places to have their hours. American Giants museum was closed and not on the app sadly. We also didn’t get to visit the Conoco Station in Shamrock, TX because they were closed and no hours posted. Not the app’s fault but more the keepers of the locations to notify.

While this app was helpful and kept us on track, it was also frustrating at times. First, it needs an overview function to let you zoom out to see where it’s taking you. Second, it doesn’t always take you on key Route 66 routes and this by key sights. For example, in California it bypassed the Fair Oaks Pharmacy on Route 66. In fact it bypassed the whole end of the original Route 66. It has a Route B option, but that didn’t take the rout either. This happened in one other key area also. I only knew this because we used a guidebook as a supplement. Third, it had a number of times that it doubled back on the Route taking us in circles. Sometimes it would take you around the block, other times it would take you around a multiple block area (eg in Santa Fe), but three times it back tracked many miles (eg back and forth across the Arizona California border). So be where. This is another reason for needing an overview function.