Santa Fe Trail
Photo: en:User:Nationalparks (Talk), CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons
The Santa Fe Trail was one of the main historical routes that traders, settlers and military parties took to the southwestern United States from the population centers of the east, as the United States was expanding from its east-coast roots to become the continent-spanning mega-nation that it is now. The Trail's heyday was the 19th century in the Golden Age of the Old West. In particular, it was part of the route for many of the "49ers" heading for the California Gold Country during the gold rush there starting in 1849.
Today it has all but vanished in some areas, as 21st-century "civilization" encroaches and hides the Trail beneath modern roads and housing. However, the route still exists, and there are plenty of opportunities for the intrepid traveler to follow it by car, bike, and even foot, and get a sense of what the original travelers went through.
UnderstandParts of this route are preserved in the Santa Fe National Historic Trail, a unit of the United States National Park System.
PrepareStep number one is to decide exactly how you're going to cover this ground.
Get inThe Santa Fe Trail is considered to originate near the small town of Boonville, Missouri. Boonville is about equidistant between the major airports of St.
DriveYou can drive this route with no more than one night spent on the road (somewhere in western Kansas, say Dodge City), but it's not recommended.
Stay safeExcept in parts of the Kansas City area, crime isn't much of a problem on this itinerary, and even Kansas City isn't a hotbed of crime compared to other big cities. Your main issues are weather and remoteness.
Go nextSanta Fe is, pretty well by definition, the end of the Trail.
Sources and licences
- Guide text adapted from the Wikivoyage article "Santa Fe Trail" by its contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikivoyage · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Photo: en:User:Nationalparks (Talk), CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons