Motel Safari

The Motel Safari opened in 1959 as a 23-room single-story motor court — built two decades after the Blue Swallow Motel and reflecting the evolving design vocabulary of late-1950s roadside lodging. By 1959 the motor court format was transitioning into the more familiar postwar motel format, with most new properties built without the individual attached garages that defined late-1930s and early-1940s motor courts. The Motel Safari was built without garages, with a more streamlined single-story bungalow layout that put rooms directly accessible from a central parking lot rather than via individual garage entries.

The 23 rooms are arranged in two main bungalow rows on either side of the property, with the office building and the neon sign positioned at the streetside corner. Each room is roughly 250-300 square feet with a queen or full bed (some king-bed rooms available), a small bathroom with shower or tub-shower combination, a writing desk, a closet, and modern HVAC. The room sizes are larger than the Blue Swallow's 1939 bungalows, reflecting the slightly more generous standards of late-1950s motel design.

Exterior architecture is characteristically late-1950s — flat roofs with shallow overhangs, painted stucco walls in muted tones with brighter accent colors, large picture windows in each room, and a covered walkway running along each bungalow row. The overall feel is unmistakably mid-century American motor court, and the Motel Safari has been deliberately preserved as a visual time capsule of that era. The Mona-and-Vince restoration era specifically targeted preservation of the original exterior character.

The Motel Safari's neon sign is one of the most distinctive surviving Route 66 signs on the entire corridor — a vertical sign featuring a stylized giraffe with elongated neck stretching up the sign's full height, surrounded by neon-outlined African-safari-themed graphics and the words "Motel Safari" in bright neon lettering. The giraffe theme reflects the motel's original 1959 marketing concept — the safari name was meant to evoke exotic adventure travel at a time when international travel was becoming aspirational for middle-class American families, and the giraffe was chosen as the most visually distinctive of the various African-safari animals available for a sign design.

The original 1959 sign deteriorated significantly through the late 20th century as the motel went through periods of declining ownership and maintenance. By the time Mona and Vince purchased the property in the mid-2000s, the sign was in poor condition with multiple failed neon sections and a faded paint substrate. The 2005-2010 restoration work included a substantial sign restoration project — original neon tubing was replaced where needed, the underlying substrate was repainted to match the original colors, and electrical systems were modernized for reliability while preserving the original 1959 visual character.

The sign is typically illuminated from dusk through the property's nightly front-desk-closing time (usually around 10-11pm). The combination of the Motel Safari's giraffe sign, Tee Pee Curios' teepee neon, and the Blue Swallow Motel's swallow sign produces three of the most distinctive surviving Route 66 neon signs all within a few blocks of each other in eastern Tucumcari — a concentration of restored mid-century neon that doesn't exist anywhere else on the entire 2,448-mile Route 66 corridor.

The 23 rooms have been individually themed during the Mona-and-Vince restoration, with each room decorated around a specific Route 66, mid-century, or Southwestern theme. Theme variations include classic Route 66 highway memorabilia rooms, mid-century-modern design rooms, Southwestern-pattern rooms with Native American textiles and motifs, and several specifically Tucumcari-history-themed rooms with vintage photographs and ephemera from the town's Route 66 heyday. The themed-room concept is deliberately playful rather than aggressively kitsch, and most guests find the theming charming rather than overwhelming.

Beyond the thematic decor, the rooms have been substantially modernized in the interior comforts that matter for actual overnight stays — comfortable modern beds with quality linens, modernized bathrooms with reliable plumbing and good hot water, modern HVAC for both heating and air conditioning, free Wi-Fi throughout the property, and flat-screen TVs with cable service. The combination of preserved 1959 exterior character and modernized interior comforts produces a stay experience that's genuinely Route 66-authentic without sacrificing the basic comforts modern travelers expect.

Room rates vary by room type and season — basic queen rooms typically run $60-$70 per night in off-season and $75-$85 per night in peak season; king rooms and the larger themed suites run $80-$90 per night. All rooms include free Wi-Fi, free parking, and access to the outdoor pool during pool-open season (typically May through September). The property is pet-friendly with a modest fee per pet per stay, making it a viable option for Route 66 travelers traveling with dogs or cats.

The Motel Safari has an outdoor swimming pool — a mid-1959-vintage rectangular pool in a small fenced courtyard between the two bungalow rows. The pool was part of the original 1959 property and was restored during the Mona-and-Vince 2005-2010 work. The pool is typically open from May through September with seasonal heating, and is one of the few Route 66 motel pools on the Tucumcari corridor that remains operational — most other surviving Tucumcari motels either never had pools or have closed their pools in subsequent decades.

Beyond the pool, the property amenities are deliberately simple. The free continental breakfast (coffee, juice, pastries, cereal, sometimes hot items) is offered in a small breakfast room near the office. Free parking is available in the central courtyard and is essentially never tight even during peak occupancy. Free Wi-Fi covers the entire property reliably. There's no on-site restaurant, but the property's location on Route 66 Boulevard puts it within walking distance of Del's Restaurant (about a half-mile east) and within easy driving distance of all other Tucumcari dining options.

The property is pet-friendly with a modest fee per stay (typically $15-$25 per pet per stay), making it one of the few pet-friendly Route 66 motels in Tucumcari. Pet-friendly rooms are limited to specific bungalows on one row of the property, and reservations for pet-friendly rooms should be requested specifically at booking. The pet-friendly accommodation makes the Motel Safari particularly attractive to Route 66 travelers driving with dogs, who frequently find pet-accommodating overnight options scarce along the corridor.

Reservations at the Motel Safari can be made directly by phone (575-461-3622) or through the property's website. The 23-room inventory means the property has more booking flexibility than the 12-room Blue Swallow, and same-day or short-notice bookings are typically possible even during peak tourism months. Advance reservations are still recommended for weekend nights during peak season (April through October), but the Motel Safari is generally the easier-to-book of the two main Tucumcari Route 66 motels.

Comparison to the Blue Swallow: the Blue Swallow is the more historically significant property (older, more architecturally distinctive, more famous worldwide), the more expensive option ($80-$120 vs. $60-$90 per night), and the harder to book due to small room inventory. The Motel Safari is generally less historically prominent but offers a comparable authentic Route 66 motor-court experience at a substantially lower price point with more booking availability. Many Route 66 travelers stay at the Blue Swallow on one Tucumcari overnight and the Motel Safari on a return visit — both properties are essential Route 66 motor-court experiences in their own right.

The canonical Tucumcari overnight at the Motel Safari follows the same template as a Blue Swallow stay: arrive in late afternoon, check in, drive the daytime Route 66 corridor for architectural photography, have dinner at Del's Restaurant, drive the corridor again at dusk for neon photography (the Motel Safari's own giraffe sign is one of the corridor's neon highlights), return to the motel for evening relaxation by the pool in season, and depart the next morning after the free continental breakfast. Travelers continuing east reach the Texas state line at Glenrio in about 40 miles; travelers heading west reach Santa Rosa in 60 miles and Albuquerque in 175 miles.