There's only one national park that Route 66 runs directly through, and most travelers blow right past it.
Petrified Forest National Park is one of the strangest, most beautiful, and most overlooked stops on the entire Mother Road — a landscape of 225-million-year-old fossilized logs, the technicolor stripes of the Painted Desert, and the faded asphalt ghost of the original Route 66.
Here's why it's worth the detour.
What "Petrified" Actually Means
About 225 million years ago, this part of northeastern Arizona was a humid floodplain at the equator, with massive coniferous trees that fell, got buried in sediment, and were preserved as their wood was slowly replaced — cell by cell — by silica from volcanic ash in the groundwater. The result: solid quartz logs that look exactly like wood, complete with bark texture and growth rings, but are hard enough to require a diamond saw to cut.
The park has the densest concentration of these fossils on Earth. Some logs are nearly 200 feet long. Many are streaked with red (iron), yellow (manganese), and purple (manganese dioxide) — a 2-million-times-magnified version of a tree ring captured in stone.
The Drive Through the Park
The road through Petrified Forest is about 28 miles, north to south. You enter at one end, drive through, and exit at the other — there's no doubling back. You can do the whole drive (with stops) in 2 to 3 hours.
The park has two distinct halves:
Northern half — the Painted Desert. Rolling, striped badlands in pink, orange, red, and lavender. The colors come from different mineral content in the volcanic ash that makes up the soil. The Painted Desert Inn (a 1924 building, restored as a small museum) is the highlight here — and Route 66 ran right past it.
Southern half — the petrified wood. This is where you'll see the actual logs, mostly in the Crystal Forest, Jasper Forest, and Giant Logs trail areas. Get out of the car and walk these short trails — 20 minutes each, easy.
The Original Route 66 Roadbed
This is the part most travelers miss, and it's the best part.
A small turnout north of the park entrance — marked "Route 66" — is where the original 1926 alignment of the highway ran through what was then unprotected desert. The road was abandoned when I-40 was built in the 1960s, and you can still see it as a faint line of asphalt and gravel stretching across the desert.
A rusted 1932 Studebaker sits permanently at the spot, marking where the highway used to be. A short wooden interpretive sign tells you what you're looking at: the bones of America's most famous road, slowly being reclaimed by the desert.
It's one of the most affecting stops on the entire trip. Plan for at least 20 minutes here.
Don't Take the Wood
This is the cardinal rule of Petrified Forest. Taking petrified wood from the park is a federal crime, and the park has an entire room of "conscience letters" — mail from people who took a small piece, suffered years of bad luck (or guilt), and mailed it back. Some letters span generations.
Stick to walking the trails. There are licensed rock shops just outside the park exit that sell legal petrified wood, collected from private land, if you want a souvenir.
Practical Tips
Open year-round, but check hours. The park is open every day except Christmas, but hours are reduced in winter (8am–5pm) versus summer (7am–7pm). You need to start the drive at least 2 hours before closing time to do it justice.
Entrance fee: $25 per vehicle, valid 7 days. An "America the Beautiful" annual pass works here.
No food inside the park. The two visitor centers (one at each end) have limited snacks but no real food. Eat before you enter or pack a picnic.
Cell service is spotty. Download your maps before you enter.
Pair it with the Painted Desert. The Painted Desert section is in the north of the park — many travelers do that part first and skip the petrified wood. Don't. The southern half is what makes the park unique.
Stop in Holbrook for the night. Holbrook is the closest town with motels and is itself a great Route 66 stop. The Wigwam Motel (in Holbrook) is one of the most iconic motels on Route 66 — concrete teepees you actually sleep in, in business since 1950. Book ahead in summer.
How to Fit It Into Your Day
Easiest plan:
- Sleep in Albuquerque or Gallup the night before.
- Drive to the north entrance of Petrified Forest in the morning (about 3 hours from Albuquerque).
- Drive through the park (~3 hours with stops).
- Exit at the south end, drive to Holbrook for lunch and the Wigwam Motel photo.
- Continue west on Route 66 toward Winslow, Flagstaff, and Williams (the Grand Canyon gateway).
Back to the Pillar
Petrified Forest is stop six of ten. See the full route here: Most People Drive Route 66 Wrong. These Are the 10 Stops That Matter.
Next stop: the Grand Canyon detour — technically off Route 66, but every road tripper takes it.
