The USA in 21 days
A first trip you could take for real, day by day from the Statue of Liberty down the whole of Route 66 to the Golden Gate, with a question at every stop. Answer as you travel and get your score at the end.
Some 340 million people live in the United States, more than in any country except India and China, and the lower 48 states alone cross four time zones.
This is a first trip you could book as it stands: 21 days heading west, with the whole of Route 66 by car in the year it turns 100 and the Pacific coast at the end. Each stop ends with a question, and your score is waiting at the end.
Land in New York, a city of more than 8 million people in five boroughs. Give the first days to Manhattan on foot, from Central Park down to the old streets at the southern tip, where the city began.
From Battery Park the ferry runs out to Liberty Island and on to Ellis Island, where some 12 million immigrants stepped ashore between 1892 and 1954. Tickets to the crown sell out weeks ahead, so book them with your flight.
Question 1 of 10
The sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi shaped her copper skin. Who engineered the iron frame that holds it up?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
The Amtrak train to Washington takes about three hours and arrives at Union Station, a short walk from the Capitol. The city was laid out as the new capital in the 1790s, on a site George Washington picked himself.
The National Mall runs from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, and the Smithsonian museums along it are free. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech from the memorial’s steps in 1963.
Question 2 of 10
From 1959 to 2008, the Lincoln Memorial was printed on the back of which American coin?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Fly to Chicago and set your watch back an hour. Take an architecture boat tour along the river through the city that built the first skyscrapers, then find your reflection in Cloud Gate, which everyone here calls the Bean.
Pick up a rental car. On Adams Street, in front of the Art Institute, a brown sign reads Begin Route 66. The road opened on November 11, 1926, and from here it runs all the way to the Pacific.
Question 3 of 10
Every year for St. Patrick’s Day, Chicago dyes something bright green. What?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Follow the brown Historic Route 66 signs southwest across the cornfields of Illinois. Just before St. Louis, walk out over the Mississippi on the old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which bends 22 degrees halfway across.
Lewis and Clark set out from here in 1804 to cross the continent, and the Gateway Arch honors everyone who went west after them. Eero Saarinen designed it in stainless steel, and it was finished in 1965.
Question 4 of 10
How do visitors get up to the windows at the top of the Gateway Arch?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Give two days to Missouri and Oklahoma. John Steinbeck called Route 66 the Mother Road in The Grapes of Wrath, his novel about the families who drove it west in the 1930s. Stop at the Blue Whale of Catoosa, a smiling concrete whale in a pond near Tulsa.
West of Amarillo, ten Cadillacs stand buried nose first in a field beside the highway, their tailfins rising and falling through the models from 1949 to 1963. Down the road in Adrian, the MidPoint Café marks halfway to Los Angeles.
Question 5 of 10
What are visitors to Cadillac Ranch invited to do with the cars?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Set your watch back another hour for Mountain time. Until 1937 Route 66 made a loop north through Santa Fe, and it is still worth the detour. This is the highest state capital in the US, with a clear, dry light that has drawn painters for a century, Georgia O’Keeffe among them.
The old town is built of adobe, bricks of sun-dried mud, and the city keeps new buildings downtown in the same Pueblo style. Under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, Native American artists sell the silver and turquoise jewelry they make.
Question 6 of 10
Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the US. Around when did Spain make it a capital?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Drive west past the Painted Desert and the stone logs of the Petrified Forest, then turn north at Flagstaff for the South Rim. Book rooms here and in Santa Fe early, since both fill up.
Mather Point is the first view of the canyon for most visitors, with the Colorado River a thin thread far below. Since January 2026, visitors from outside the US pay $100 each on top of the entry fee, unless they hold the $250 annual pass.
Question 7 of 10
What does most of Arizona skip that nearly every other state does?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
The last day on Route 66 crosses the Mojave Desert, past the wild burros of Oatman and long empty stretches between gas stations. Out here, fill the tank whenever you can.
Follow Santa Monica Boulevard to the ocean and walk out onto Santa Monica Pier, open since 1909, where a sign reads End of the Trail. Give the next two days to Los Angeles: the Hollywood sign from Griffith Observatory, and tacos from a truck for dinner.
Question 8 of 10
An “End of the Trail” sign on Santa Monica Pier marks the finish of Route 66. Where did the road itself end?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Drive north on Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, past the elephant seals on the beach at Piedras Blancas. Big Sur begins where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise straight out of the sea.
Bixby Bridge opened in 1932 and leaps a deep canyon just above the surf. Pull in at the turnout on the north side for the view on every postcard, and stop again at McWay Falls, which pours onto a beach no one is allowed to walk on.
Question 9 of 10
What most often closes Highway 1 along the Big Sur coast?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
Carmel and Monterey come next, and then San Francisco, where the cable cars have climbed the hills since 1873. Ride one from Powell Street, then eat your way through Chinatown, the oldest in North America.
Walk or cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge. When it opened in 1937 it had the longest span of any suspension bridge in the world. Morning fog often swallows the towers, so keep an afternoon free for a second try.
Question 10 of 10
The Golden Gate Bridge is not gold. What is its official color called?
Pick an answer to see how you did.
That was 21 days from coast to coast, most of it on the road. Yellowstone and the canyons of Utah are still waiting for the next trip.
Time to see how you did.
0 of 10
You have not answered any questions yet. Scroll back up, and there is one waiting at every stop.
- Statue of LibertyDays 1–3 · New YorkNot answered yet
- Lincoln MemorialDays 4–5 · WashingtonNot answered yet
- Route 66 beginsDays 6–7 · ChicagoNot answered yet
- Gateway ArchDay 8 · St. LouisNot answered yet
- Cadillac RanchDays 9–10 · AmarilloNot answered yet
- Santa Fe PlazaDays 11–12 · Santa FeNot answered yet
- Mather PointDays 13–14 · Grand CanyonNot answered yet
- Santa Monica PierDays 15–17 · Los AngelesNot answered yet
- Bixby BridgeDays 18–19 · Big SurNot answered yet
- Golden Gate BridgeDays 20–21 · San FranciscoNot answered yet
Day by day
The whole trip on one page, with how you get to each stop. New York, Chicago and Los Angeles each have a Worldly city guide to go deeper.
- Days 1–3New YorkStatue of LibertyFly into New YorkCity guide
- Days 4–5WashingtonLincoln MemorialAmtrak from New York, 3 h
- Days 6–7ChicagoRoute 66 beginsFlight from Washington, 2 hCity guide
- Day 8St. LouisGateway ArchRoute 66 by car, 5 h
- Days 9–10AmarilloCadillac RanchTwo days on Route 66, 12 h
- Days 11–12Santa FeSanta Fe PlazaCar from Amarillo, 4 h 30 min
- Days 13–14Grand CanyonMather PointCar via the Petrified Forest, 7 h
- Days 15–17Los AngelesSanta Monica PierRoute 66 across the Mojave, 8 hCity guide
- Days 18–19Big SurBixby BridgePacific Coast Highway, 6 h
- Days 20–21San FranciscoGolden Gate BridgeCar up the coast, 3 h
Before you go
- One-way carRent in Chicago and return in San Francisco. One-way rentals carry a drop-off fee, so compare a few companies before you book.
- Find the old roadRoute 66 signs are sparse, and souvenir hunters often steal them. Carry a turn-by-turn guide or a paper map set.
- Park fees for visitorsSince 2026, visitors from abroad pay $100 per person at the Grand Canyon and ten other busy parks. The $250 annual pass covers it.
- Tips and taxRestaurants expect a tip of 15 to 20 percent, and prices on menus and shelves usually leave out the sales tax added at the register.