Route 66 Navigation User Reviews

Customer Experience

Positive experience46.2% of reviews
Neutral9.2% of reviews
Negative experience44.6% of reviews

~ Based on 130 written reviews from the US App Store.

What users say

Is Route 66 Navigation Safe?

Route 66 Navigation has mixed safety signals based on user ratings. AppsHunter Safety Score for Route 66 Navigation is 59/100.

This assessment is based on 173 user ratings, with an App Store average of 2.9/5.

Safety Analysis

42.8% of ratings point to a safe experience
9.8% of ratings suggest some concerns
47.4% of ratings point to a risky experience

~ Based on 173 App Store ratings for Route 66 Navigation.

Is Route 66 Navigation Legit?

Route 66 Navigation appears legitimate, with a few gaps. AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Route 66 Navigation is 78/100.

Based on 78 of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Top reviews

Might be the only game in town

I completed Chicago to Santa Monica in May, 2026 on a motorcycle, taking 18 days. I could not have used a guidebook very easily so this app was essential. I could not have done it without the app. BUT, the “places to visit” tab gives you a very uncurated list of waypoints, some of which are just restaurants that appear to have submitted their own promotional info to the developer and are really not useful, others are like maybe #6 on a 0-5 scale of “ interesting,” and some are on the wrong side of an interstate section so the navigation keeps taking you around in a circle. The navigation section of the app can be exasperating (see above) and has some glitches that should have been worked out by now. I could not get it to lead me from point to selected point on a day’s travel— it always wanted to lead me from my day’s start to the next site. I spent a lot of time swearing at it!
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Great App

I did the Route in 2019 and used the EZ guide. Tried the app this time along with the EZ guide and it was a game changer. No longer having to have your head in a book trying to figure out the next turn as copilot. Actually getting to sit back and enjoy the ride was priceless to me! Will gladly buy again when we go back to Route 66!
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Frustrating

Super frustrating to use for navigation. Closes out, loses location - I had to reenter starting points multiple times. The cool sights to see were called out as we were passing them so by the time we could tell the kids, we were already past.

Cool idea, but needs some work

Waist of Money

The turn by turn instructions are so small they are almost impossible to read. Then, the instructions are horrible. In one example the instructions said to Turn onto Historic Route 66. Since much of the route is on the frontage road of Interstate 40 I turned down the frontage road on the north side of the Interstate. In about a block there was a sign warning the road ended with no way out. (This was not a temporary sign.) I made a u turn and went to the south side of the Interstate and there was no frontage road. I then got on I-40 which is what the instructions should have said. In my wildest dreams I would never call Interstate 40 Historical Route 66. This type of instruction was the rule not the exception.

When driving a yellow warning message would pop up and describe a point of interest. This message stayed on the screen for about 5 seconds give or take 3 seconds. I didn’t use a stopwatch but counted 1 one thousand etc. By the time you saw it you didn’t have time to read it and before it disappeared. The type on these messages was also extremely small.

I also was never able to put an actual address for a destination, only a city. That meant I needed to switch to a GPS when I got close to my destination.

Before you buy this app look at picture they show and imagine trying to read it on your phone going 50 mph.
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Expensive and frustrating

The app randomly shuts down while navigating, it will freeze, and if you switch between apps it stop navigation. I paid for the $20 for 7 days and fought with the app for 7 days. Tried to report the issues and got no feedback. So frustrating. If they fix the issue and price point it would be a good app.
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No sync

Wow, no sync. After paying $44 I was disappointed the app isn’t usable between the iPad and iPhone - when the trial did. The response, this isn’t within our ability to make this right.

Now I can’t use the CarPlay feature! Bummer.

Directions

Couldn’t give me directions from Kingman AZ to Holbrook AZ on Route 66????

Disappointed

Not worth it, trying to cancel

With the restrictions on holding the phone it’s hard to read.

Since there’s no provision for having a large font it’s mostly suited to having a second person for reading directions. You can’t expand the screen for making it easier to read. I’m having to lean over to read the directions and miles to the next stop. Since portrait mode makes the map smaller I have to have it leaned over to enlarge the map.
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NAVIGATION ONLY WITH BUGS & NO DETAIL ON POINTS OF INTEREST, not for casual traveler!

App is very buggy. It does keep you on Route 66 but you do have to re-enter destination anytime you close the app and re-open it. It also has little icons on it that show a little food icon, a little ghost (who knows what this means), hotel, places of interest but it is not clickable, so you have no idea what is coming up, you have to open other apps to find out what the icon is that is showing on this map…still haven’t figured out what the ghost icon means. For most Route 66ers, this app is not what you are wanting it to be unless you are an absolute purist who only cares about staying on the route and not about the sites. Don’t buy this one!!
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It's good, but not great

This app was essential to us successfully driving on and staying on Route 66 from east to west. Unfortunately, there were times when it would alert us to historic places, sights, etc. after we had passed them. Very frustrating. Also, it doesn't indicate which side of the road the various attractions are on. We missed a few because we were looking at the wrong side of the highway. It didn't seem to update for construction. I had the latest version loaded, yet it kept trying to have us drive on a section that was closed. Frustration was that it kept trying to bring us back onto the closed road. Having said that, we would have missed a lot if we didn't use it.
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Christy

Would absolutely recommend this app if you’re wanting to drive the historic Route 66 we used Google maps for two days and it bounced us everywhere. Downloaded this app and we have been on Historic Route 66 ever since!!!

Great App With Some Notable Limitations

I am not a fan of these navigation apps, but this one works quite well, and I plan to make good use of it.

The developer has done a great job with making this app easy to navigate with. And the integration with CarPlay is a big plus. There's a few things to be desired though:

1. With so many POI's in this app, there should be a search feature so you can search for a POI, rather than scrolling through every city and state to find what you're looking for. There should also be an option to tag your POI's as a favorite. This way you can save them if you're planning a route. It would be nice to see these features added in a future release, please.

2. With this app, you set a starting and stopping point. Hit navigate, then you can save it for future use. It will show you the POI's along your route as you get closer to them. But why not have the ability to create a route, add your own POI's in the app to your route, and then save it? I would like to see custom routing in a future release, please.

3. A dark theme would be nice to accommodate drivers who have vision limitations, like myself.

Other than that, it's a spiffy little app. Thanks for making it!
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Makes traveling easier

Third trip down Route 66. First two we used the books. This app may not be perfect and has a glitch or two but we had the same issues with Google Maps. It makes traveling Route 66 much easier. Just drive and it tells you where to turn and you can spend more time seeing the sights and not having your head buried in a book trying to see where to turn next. Highly recommend!!
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Please Update!

Hasn’t been updated in over two years. Map update keeps crashing. Lots of people wanting to use it for the 100th anniversary.

Great Routing, Poor Integration

Like other reviewers, we found the app pretty darned good with route planning. We used it exclusively for our westbound journey from
Chicago to Santa Monica. When you use it in navigation mode, it faithfully points out many points of interest that we would have simply missed. Bravo! We used it first thing in the morning to tell it where our ending point for the day would be, and it gave us two options to get there. “Alternate A” was always the faster option whereas “Alternate B” followed more of the 1926 to 1930’s alignments and was consequently slower usually. Some days we took “A” and others “B” depending on how far we intended to travel that particular day. Now about the Apple CarPlay integration. It’s terrible. As the “tech person” and the primary driver, I needed CarPlay to work. I can NOT be staring at my phone to try to figure out where to make the next turn! We met soooo many people during our trip that were using this app and could not get CarPlay to work. I figured out how to get it to work, but it’s a pain in the arse every time. By the way, talk to people when you’re stopped at restaurants, attractions, gas stations, and motels. You’ll meet a lot of interesting people. That’s part of the Route 66 experience. Considering the amount of money we spent on the trip, paying for a “CarPlay optional upgrade” would have been worth it. I spent more on ridiculous kitsch that I apparently can’t live without now anyway.
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Overall Good

Overall the app does a good job of navigating Route 66. However, the app offers little to help in planning in advance of your trip. The POI feature is awful to try and look ahead and see what’s worth seeing! Every time you select a POI and then return to the map, the app takes you back to your original location! I would like to see the app stay in the place you’re looking and allow a favorite feature so you can select POIs you really want to see. Also, the app will take you off route to see something you may not be interested in. I’d like to see features that let you pre-navigate the route and pick the POIs you’re most interested in seeing. Additionally, once you’re in navigation mode, the app doesn’t show city names, so it can be confusing to look ahead. I’d also like to see an avoid feature that navigates you away from areas you’re not interested in.
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Not Worth the Money or Your Time on 66

I started out very excited about this app until they supposedly did their “update” for 2026…
It went from free to priced out to use the app- I had to do the highest pay option because their lower option wouldn’t let me do the entire trip which honestly was a huge red flag but I went with it anyway.

There was several places on the map that didn’t exist anymore (which we took a lot of time trying to find and never did) including a supposed landmark of old Route 66 that landed us in a field and farm and the first ever McDonalds which had clearly not been there for a while as it had a multi story parking garage in its space…

The app constantly froze and had issues even with the offline version of the maps- so badly that in the end we quit using it and just tried to compare the info to books we had bought to get to where we needed to.

As this was the supposed official app of Route 66 I’m extremely disappointed and feel like almost all of the things in it were probably paid for by the hotels and restaurants that mostly took up the app- and not the local businesses that would be able to benefit from it.

If I could go back and not pay the $40 bucks I would- but I can’t so I’m warning others this is NOT the app your want for your trip.
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Excellent for Navigation

I recently completed the entire Chicago to Santa Monica westbound road trip and I used this app for navigation the entire way. It was the only option I could find for heads up turn by turn directions connected to my car via Apple CarPlay. I was concerned given some of the reviews, but in practice it performed perfectly and was exactly what I was looking for to make the trip easily and authentically. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants this type of navigation support.
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Westbound

We had 5 or 6 of the books that were supposed to be the best for following Route 66. Using this app, we didn’t need the books at all. We tried using the books a couple of times and after getting lost we switched back to the app. Best money we spent preparing for out road trip.