From RV nostalgia to classic cars, Amarillo gives road-trip lovers another reason to linger along the Mother Road.
Texas is a big state. That is not a travel cliché; it is a practical reality.
To understand Texas, you need to move through it. You need a car, a little patience, a sense of curiosity, and ideally, enough time to let the distances become part of the experience. Highways are not just ways to get from one place to another here. They are part of the story.
That felt especially true in Amarillo, where Route 66 nostalgia still hums through the Texas Panhandle. This is a city where the road matters, where vehicles carry memory, and where the great American road trip still feels wonderfully alive. During my visit, two stops leaned beautifully into that feeling: the Jack Sisemore Traveland RV Museum and Bill’s Backyard Classics.
Together, they offered a joyful nod to the Mother Road, to car lovers, to family vacations, and to the simple thrill of seeing how people once travelled before screens, apps, and endless efficiency changed the way we move through the world.
Jack Sisemore Traveland RV Museum
The Jack Sisemore Traveland RV Museum feels like stepping into a scrapbook of road-trip dreams.
Located in Amarillo, the museum celebrates the history of recreational vehicles and the culture of travelling with your little world tucked behind you. The official museum site lists its current location at 14501 I-27 in Amarillo, with seasonal hours posted for visitors.
Inside, the charm is immediate. Vintage RVs have a way of making people smile because they carry a very specific kind of nostalgia. They speak to summer holidays, highway maps, fold-out tables, roadside diners, campgrounds, and that hopeful feeling of packing up and going somewhere simply because the road is calling.
There is also something tender about seeing how compact and clever these vehicles were. Every cupboard, bed, table, and tiny kitchen feels like a design puzzle. The best ones make you imagine the families who used them: parents making coffee at dawn, children climbing into bunks, someone reading a paper map in the passenger seat, and everyone discovering that the journey itself was part of the vacation.
For travellers who love the open road, an RV museum is more than a collection of vehicles. It is a reminder of a slower kind of travel, when getting there had its own texture and personality. The experience feels especially fitting in Amarillo, where Route 66 has long drawn people westward with the promise of discovery.
The Romance of Road Travel
There is something about an RV that makes the road feel more open to anyone willing to follow it.
In a state as large as Texas, that idea feels particularly fitting. Distances stretch. Landscapes change. A drive can take you from city streets to cattle country, from flat plains to dramatic canyons, from barbecue signs to neon-lit roadside icons. Travel by car or RV allows you to notice the in-between places — and in Texas, those in-between places often hold the best stories.
That is what I loved about visiting Amarillo during Route 66’s centennial year. The road was not just history. It was still active, still present, still inviting people to pull over and look around. The official Route 66 Centennial site notes that 2026 celebrations include national events, public art projects, historic preservation efforts, and storytelling initiatives tied to the Mother Road’s 100th anniversary.
In Amarillo, those celebrations do not feel abstract. They feel grounded in diners, murals, roadside stops, vintage signs, and collections like these, where wheels become memory.
Bill’s Backyard Classics
Bill’s Backyard Classics feels like the kind of place Route 66 travellers hope to stumble upon: personal, nostalgic, full of shine, chrome, memory, and affection.
The museum was founded by Bill and Linda Pratt, longtime Amarillo residents who turned a love of classic cars into a family-friendly attraction. After Bill sold his successful business in 2012, he began looking for “a car or two” to add to his collection, but that small idea quickly grew into something much larger. According to the museum’s own history, Bill realized that many people shared his enthusiasm for vintage cars and that Amarillo could use more family entertainment options. From there, the idea for Bill’s Backyard Classics took shape.
There is something lovely about that origin story. This was not a museum built from a cold collecting instinct. It began with curiosity, nostalgia, and the desire to share something joyful with others. Bill and Linda searched across the country, from Texas to Canada and from California to the Carolinas, gathering, cleaning, and polishing dozens of cars for what became one of the area’s largest private car collections.
Today, Bill’s Backyard Classics is home to more than 100 classic, custom, and hot rod vehicles, and the museum remains family-run in honour of Bill and Linda, who have both passed away. For visitors, that family connection gives the experience warmth. It does not feel like a showroom. It feels like someone opened the garage doors to a lifetime of stories.
For car lovers, the appeal is obvious: polished paint, vintage curves, dashboard details, old-school personality, and vehicles that seem ready to roll back onto the open road. For everyone else, it is still wonderfully accessible. You do not need to know every make, model, or engine specification to appreciate the feeling of the place. The museum taps into something many travellers understand: the romance of the drive, the memory of family road trips, and the way certain cars seem to belong to a particular chapter of American life.
That made it a perfect Amarillo stop. Along Route 66, cars are never just transportation. They are part of the mythology of the road itself. At Bill’s Backyard Classics, that mythology is lovingly preserved, one vehicle at a time.
Nostalgia With Horsepower
What struck me most at Bill’s Backyard Classics was the sense of care.
Classic cars require attention. They are not disposable. They are repaired, restored, maintained, polished, and preserved. In an era when so much is designed to be replaced quickly, there is something deeply satisfying about seeing objects built to last and loved enough to keep going. That is part of the emotional pull of a car museum. You are not only looking at transportation. You are looking at design, ambition, technology, memory, and pride. A car can remind someone of their father, their first road trip, a teenage dream, a favourite film, or a decade they never lived through but somehow feel connected to.
At Bill’s Backyard Classics, that nostalgia is fun rather than fussy. It is approachable. You do not have to be a mechanic or a collector to enjoy it. You just need to appreciate the personality of these vehicles and the stories they carry.
Why Amarillo Makes Sense for This Story
Amarillo is a natural home for this kind of travel memory.
Its relationship to Route 66 gives the city a strong connection to road culture, but the Texas Panhandle adds its own feeling. The distances are wide. The sky is enormous. The wind is part of the experience. The road does not feel like a convenience here; it feels like a companion.
That is why the RV Museum and Bill’s Backyard Classics pair so well together. One celebrates the dream of taking your home on the highway. The other celebrates the beauty of the vehicles that turned driving into culture. Both remind visitors that travel has always been shaped by how we move.
They also speak to different kinds of travellers. RV lovers, design enthusiasts, families, vintage-car fans, Route 66 pilgrims, and nostalgia seekers will all find something to enjoy. These are not only museums for people who know every make and model. They are museums for anyone who has ever looked at the open road and wondered where it might lead.
A Softer Kind of Time Travel
I often think travel is a form of time travel, and these Amarillo stops proved that in the most charming way.
At the RV Museum, you can imagine families making their way across the country in compact spaces filled with optimism and practical ingenuity. At Bill’s Backyard Classics, you can see how cars became symbols of freedom, style, identity, and adventure. Together, they remind us that travel is not only about the destination. It is also about the vehicle, the road, the stops along the way, and the stories that get passed down afterward.
There was something wonderfully nostalgic about both places. Not in a way that felt stuck in the past, but in a way that invited memory to come along for the ride. They made me think about road maps, postcards, service stations, motel signs, family photos, and the particular joy of not being in a rush.
In a modern travel world that often rewards speed, that felt refreshing.
The Takeaway
For car lovers, RV dreamers, Route 66 travellers, and anyone who appreciates the romance of the open road, Amarillo offers two charming stops worth adding to the list.
The Jack Sisemore Traveland RV Museum celebrates the ingenuity, intimacy, and nostalgia of taking home on the highway. Bill’s Backyard Classics celebrates classic cars, craftsmanship, and the enduring appeal of vehicles with personality. Together, they offer a fun and surprisingly heartfelt look at how travel has moved through American life.
In Texas, you need wheels. In Amarillo, those wheels come with stories.
This trip was hosted by Travel Texas and Visit Amarillo. All opinions and editorial perspectives are my own.
All photographs by Helen Hatzis unless otherwise indicated.