On Central Avenue in downtown Albuquerque, a twirling dancer is projected onto the street, while a trio of bison roam in the distant background. At an intersection, a horseback rider crosses paths with a vintage lowrider car. And a mural honoring the Indigenous peoples who predate this asphalt by millennia is one block from an augmented-reality experience highlighting the city’s status as the Flamenco Capital of North America. The scenes I’ve witnessed on this street over the years are an ode to the city’s cultural tapestry.
Albuquerque’s main road is the longest continuous stretch—at 18 miles—of Route 66 in any city. This year, the New Mexico city will be full of events and restorations that celebrate the Mother Road’s 100th anniversary. Locals have renovated old Americana icons and added new murals along Central Avenue, paving the way for one of the most vibrant centennial celebrations on the 2,448-mile route.
Here are the events and openings you can expect if you visit Albuquerque or drive down New Mexico’s restored section of Route 66 in 2026.
Visit Albuquerque’s old (and restored) hotels and restaurants along Route 66
If you had passed through Albuquerque in the 1940s or ‘50s, you might have done many of the same activities you can still do today. Pull up to the Dog House drive-in, opened in 1948, to order cheeseburgers and chili fries under the glow of a tail-wagging wiener dog. Watch a music performance at KiMo Theatre, a 99-year-old pueblo deco icon that was renovated in 2024. Book a room at either Arrive Albuquerque, a motor inn reimagined as a boutique hotel, or El Vado Motel, a white adobe property that was restored and reopened in 2018. The latter accommodation has been kicking it on Route 66 since 1937—which was a big year for Albuquerque.
Route 66 originally went to Santa Fe but was rerouted in 1937 to follow a more direct and faster path through New Mexico. Skipping the state capital, more traffic came to and stopped in Albuquerque.
“That corridor that cuts through downtown was vibrant already because of this long history of trade,” says Madison Garay, Route 66 content specialist at the tourism board Visit Albuquerque, citing the Rio Grande Indian Pueblo trading route dating back to the year 1100. “It’s the heritage of the Southwest,” she adds. “By the time asphalt started getting paved, people were used to [commerce here].”
The string of new visitors brought the city economic growth. After the boom in luminous motels, soon to follow were road-trippers, migrants, a Route 66 gateway arch, and lowriders—long-bodied American cars, like Cadillacs and Lincolns, often customized with art representing New Mexico’s Chicano heritage.
Partly thanks to the region’s dry climate, which has helped preserve cars and buildings, today the city is a convergence of the past and the present. The restored landmarks and relit neon signs are due to preservation efforts by nonprofit Friends of the Orphan Signs and investments from the city.
“The people revitalizing these properties have a sense of community,” says Garay, noting examples like Sharmin Dharas, who transformed her parents’ former University Lodge motel into the mural-popping Hotel Zazz. “You don’t have Route 66 without the community.”
See Albuquerque’s new Route 66 art
To celebrate the centennial, locals are putting on events, creating new works, and even designing what Visit Albuquerque has described as an “art-fueled road trip.”
Route 66 Remixed is a self-guided art tour that spans the 18-mile length of Central Avenue, displaying the works of local artists. Created by the City of Albuquerque’s Department of Arts & Culture, in partnership with Refract Studio and Santa Fe’s immersive art wonderland Meow Wolf, the tour intends to depict the communities integral to Albuquerque’s history.
Installations include “Buffalo Return to Route 66,” a checkered mural by Thomas Christopher Haag and Jesse Raine Littlebird, recalling when bison roamed free on these lands, painted on the side of El Rey Liquors. Nearby, on the patio at 505 Central Food Hall, Lynnette Haozous’s “Cultural Crossroads” honors the artist’s Native American heritage with a mural incorporating Navajo (Diné) rug designs and desert landscapes, juxtaposed by a vintage car. And at the corner of Fourth Street and Central Avenue (the only place where Route 66 intersects itself after the route was realigned), “Mother Road Cruise” is a mural by trans artist Gael Luna, intertwining Mother Earth, the road, an Indigenous woman, coyotes, a rainbow, and a lowrider on the Rosenwald Building.
Each stop is part of an online guide, with narration by Albuquerque’s first Poet Laureate Hakim Bellamy. The guide instructs users to open their phone camera at a specific site and select the augmented-reality experience, which causes 3D animated graphics to pop up over the scenes around you.
Other Route 66 events in Albuquerque in 2026
Albuquerque is also hosting Route 66 Summerfest, a mile’s worth of music, art, and food, on July 18 in the Nob Hill neighborhood.
Other events and activations include Route 66 Speakeasy Tours with ABQ Trolley Co., a speaker series, themed sneakers available online, Rapid Transit buses wrapped in themed artwork, and a tribute concert to The Eagles (whose song “Take It Easy” nods to a piece of the route in Winslow, Arizona) at the KiMo Theatre.
There’s a new Route 66 Visitor Center on the west side, and the city is planning more yet-to-be-announced events for the centennial inauguration on November 11.
These citywide efforts are ensuring this 18-mile stretch of Route 66 continues to thrive. “The city is organizing for the next 100 years, using the centennial to build strong foundations to make their communities proud,” Garay explains. “When you go to a place where people love where they live, you can feel that.”
