Visitor’s Guide to the RV Museum on Amarillo’s Route 66!

If you’ve never been to Amarillo, Texas… well, you’re probably on a long list of people! Amarillo isn’t exactly what I would call a “travel destination”, but it does have a couple of notable things going for it.  Number 1 is that it’s located on I-40, which is one of the main coast-to-coast interstates in the country.  Number 2 is that it’s located along Route 66, and is home to one of its most famous attractions – Cadillac Ranch!  Amarillo is a good Route 66 stop because it has several attractions besides Cadillac Ranch, and one of those attractions is the Jack Sisemore’s Traveland RV Museum!

You may wonder how I found such a seemingly random attraction.  I’ve stopped in Amarillo a handful of times driving through because it makes a great halfway point between Colorado Springs and Ft Worth.  Before I had my daughter we would make Amarillo a pit stop for gas and food before trucking along on the second half of the trip.  After I had my daughter, I needed a place where I could make a longer stop to get her out of her car seat for a while! So, with this in mind, I got my handy-dandy computer out and began to search for what all there was to do in Amarillo!  I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we would need to make a stop at the Palo Duro Canyon State Park so we could hike the Lighthouse Trail – which was pretty awesome, btw! As I kept researching Amarillo, the RV Museum along Route 66 kept popping up.  Since I have a soft spot in my heart for RV’s (having lived in one for almost 5 years), and since it had so many good reviews, I decided it was worth a stop!

Jack Sisemore’s RV Museum is tucked away in the back of an RV Dealership, which makes it a little hard to find.  We didn’t feel like we were in the right place, but we walked in anyway and quickly found that our GPS had not, in fact, lied to us.

Directions: Since I don’t know where you will be coming from, I’ll put the address here so you can paste it into your GPS.  It’s located off Canyon Drive which is adjacent to I-27.

4341 Canyon Drive, Amarillo, TX

Cost: Free woot-woot!! My kind of museum!

Hours of Operation: Monday – Friday from 9-5, Saturdays 9-4

Restrooms: Yes, located inside the dealership

Tips:

• When you park, walk into the RV store/dealership and ask the receptionist about the RV Museum.  They’ll give you directions to get through the store and the back lot to get to the museum.
• This museum is self-paced and laid back, which is one of the things I liked most about it! We were welcome to climb in almost all the old RV’s and explore around to our heart’s content!  There are a few models that you are not allowed to climb into, so please be aware of the signage!
• If you visit in the summer, expect to be hot! We visited in August, and it was pretty warm inside the Museum! You may want to bring some bottled water.
• This is a great collection of vintage RV’s, motorcycles, and even period displays, like the 50’s gas station at the back of the museum.  Please have respect for what the owners have created and leave things the way you found them!

I didn’t know this, but Wally Byam was one of the “pioneers” of the travel trailer and the Founder of Airstream!  The Museum has a cool hanging display of one of his antiques!

The museum not only has an impressive array of travel trailers but also has vintage motorcycles and even a couple of classic cars! I liked these pictures of the El Camino a lot!

Another cool thing about the Museum was its period displays! Here’s part of a display that showed a 50’s Era Diner, complete with a Juke Box and booth:

It’s amazing the collection of truly rare antiques the owners have managed to get their hands on! Below is a 1918 Harley Davidson!  If you read the sign it tells you that this year model only had 2 that are known to exist with a sidecar on the left-hand side – and one of them is present!

The Woodstock Van wasn’t in as good of condition as most of the others, so you couldn’t get in it..but it made for a fun photo op!

Yet another rare antique located at this Museum is the World’s Oldest Airstream – and I can tell you this thing is in great condition! (Probably better condition than my own RV!). This baby was made back in 1935!  For obvious reasons, guests aren’t allowed inside the airstream, but they do have the inside on display for looking through the windows!

Below is the inside of the World’s Oldest Airstream!  I really liked the incorporation of wood. Well done, Airstream.

 The owners did a good job of setting up time period-appropriate displays inside each travel trailer.  There was a lot of vintage detail inside each camper!

One of the RV displays (pictured below) was the actual bus used in the Robin Williams movie “RV”!

At the back of the museum is a really cool 50’s gas station display! It was my favorite display they had!

This is one of the more interesting Museums I have been to! Altogether I’m not a big Museum person – I much prefer being outdoors – but I definitely think the RV Museum is a cool spot to see in Amarillo and a Must-See for Route 66’ers!

I hope this post has inspired someone out there to make the Jack Sisemore Traveland RV Museum a stop on their way through or to Amarillo!

As always, don’t forget to leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

Until next time!