Few Route 66 accommodations announce themselves as clearly as the Wigwam Motel. Its concrete teepee-shaped rooms are pure roadside Americana: unusual, photogenic and impossible to confuse with a standard interstate hotel.
The San Bernardino property is one of the surviving Wigwam Villages from the golden age of American automobile travel. Today it is a Route 66 landmark as much as a place to sleep.
Should you stay here?
If you are doing a Route 66 trip, one night can be part of the experience. You are choosing history and novelty rather than the predictable facilities of a modern chain hotel. If your priority is extensive hotel services, choose somewhere else and visit as part of your Route 66 drive.
Remember it is a motel
This is operating accommodation, not an open-air museum. Guests are staying here, so take photographs without wandering into private areas.
The Wigwam works especially well with the Original McDonald’s Site and Mitla Cafe. Together they tell a richer story of the road than a modern Route 66 sign ever could.