Colorado River to the Atchafalaya · shot 1968 · released 1969
A crew of twelve and two trucks spent twelve weeks on the road. Here is the road they rode, and where it all is now.
Sundown over the Mittens.
New Orleans, February 1968
The story rides east and finishes in Louisiana. The camera started there, at Mardi Gras, months before the road.
Story order: Mardi Gras comes near the end.
Hopper rented ten 16mm Bolex cameras and handed them to actors to shoot the streets. The footage helped raise the money for the film.
The film premieres in competition at Cannes on 13 May 1969, and Hopper wins the award for a first film. The film is released on 14 July 1969, made for an estimated $340,000.
The scout followed Route 66
The location scout took three weeks and mostly kept to Route 66. Here is the story’s road east, page by page, with the real place on each.
Leg 1 of 10: Into Arizona. The Colorado River at Topock. Mile 0: the river.
Mile 0: the river · Topock, Mohave County, Arizona
The riders cross the Colorado River near Needles in the opening credits.
Route 66 News says longtime Route 66 travellers will recognise the Colorado River bridge near Needles, California, in the opening credits.
The same credit sequence passes the pine forests and roadside businesses round Flagstaff.
Look across the river from the Arizona bank at Topock. Never stop on the interstate for a photograph.
A crew of twelve spends about twelve weeks on the road, with a truck just for the bikes.
A three-week scout, mostly along Route 66, finds the film’s backgrounds.
Old Route 66, Bellemont, Arizona
West of Flagstaff, a motel sign turns them away. The building is still there. So is the sign, in a bar a few steps off.
Vacancy, says the sign. For now.
Rider Magazine says the film’s Pine Breeze Inn was a now-abandoned gas station about a quarter of a mile from Grand Canyon Harley-Davidson on old Route 66. The building still stands.
The No Vacancy sign from the film hangs in the entry of the Roadhouse Bar & Grill, across the car park from Grand Canyon Harley-Davidson.
Route 66 News lists the Pine Breeze Inn in Bellemont among the Route 66 places in the opening credits. Cast and crew stayed at the Americana Inn on Route 66 in Flagstaff during the Arizona shoot.
The building is empty: look from Old Route 66. The film’s sign is a short walk away, inside the Roadhouse Bar & Grill.
About 20 miles north of Flagstaff is Sacred Mountain, where the two fill up after giving a hitchhiker a ride. It is still there, with its Sacred Mountain sign, on the left as you head north on Highway 89.
Seen from the highway, on the left as you drive north. It is a roadside building, not a stop: don’t block the road.
Wupatki, the first night
László Kovács lit the campfire scenes with one lamp and a few tricks. Build the rig and bring the three of them up out of the dark.
Dark. No fire, no light. Switch on the lamp.
Rider Magazine places the film’s first-night camp at Wupatki National Monument. Camping and fires are not allowed at the monument today, and nor is climbing on the ruins.
The Lomaki and Box Canyon trail is a half-mile round trip on rough gravel, about 4 miles by car from the north entrance off Highway 89. It is open sunrise to sunset all year.
Open sunrise to sunset all year. No camping, no fires and no climbing on the walls.
North of Flagstaff · $25 a vehicle · covers Sunset Crater too · 7 days
The first night’s camp. The Lomaki trail is a half-mile round trip, open sunrise to sunset all year.
Fees and passes
Kodak gave László Kovács four rolls of a new stock a stop faster than his usual film. He saved it for low light, and used it here for a pan as the sun went down into an indigo sky.
Entry to the tribal park starts at $10 and can be booked online. Navajo Nation Parks warns that the 17-mile loop drive is rough natural road with deep sand, driven at your own risk.
A Navajo Nation tribal park. The 17-mile loop is rough dirt with deep sand: drive it only in a vehicle that can take it.
Monument Valley · Rates on booking
Rooms, valley-rim cabins and a campground with RV and wilderness sites, looking out over the buttes.
Check roomsTaos, New Mexico · Malibu, California
What the film shows
New Buffalo, a commune north of Taos, is the one the film depicts. Dennis Hopper visited and wanted to film part of the movie there. The commune refused.
In 1998 it was listed for sale at $1 million: 52 acres, a 15-room house and outbuildings.
Private land: named here, not mapped. Please leave the people who live there in peace.
Where it was shot
The commune in Taos would not allow filming, so the art director took stills and made sketches there instead.
The commune set was built in the Santa Monica Mountains, overlooking Malibu Canyon.
The set is long gone and its exact spot is not known. Malibu Canyon Road and Malibu Creek State Park, beside it, are open to all.
NMPedia says the film made northern New Mexico, Taos above all, known across the country as the place to look for a commune and drop out.
New Mexico to Louisiana
A contemporary report places the parade filming in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in the week before 7 June 1968.
This is Las Vegas, New Mexico, not Nevada. New Mexico Magazine names Easy Rider among the films shot on its plaza, with No Country for Old Men, Red Dawn and Longmire.
The town has nearly 1,000 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. The Plaza Hotel opened in 1882 and overlooks Old Town Plaza Park; 19 of its 70 rooms face the park.
A public plaza in the old town, open to all. The Plaza Hotel overlooks it.
Las Vegas, New Mexico · Rates on booking · 505-425-3591
Opened in 1882 as “The Belle of the Southwest”, on the plaza where the parade was shot. Seventy rooms, nineteen of them over the park.
Check rooms
Hopper cast local people as the diners in the café scene near Baton Rouge. The scene was shot at Melancon’s Café in Morganza, which ran for decades as a local eatery. The crew arrived in the summer of 1968, the mayor recalled.
Elida Hebert Aronstein was 20 when they filmed in her mother’s café. She said Fonda asked her and the others to improvise their lines.
For the 50th anniversary in September 2019 the town rebuilt a two-storey façade of the café on its original spot. A plaque marks the former site of Melancon’s Café and names twelve local residents who appeared in the film.
A plaque marks the former café site beside the highway. Pull fully off the road to read it.
The same tomb in February 2024.
Free Tours by Foot says the film made the cemetery, the oldest active one in New Orleans, famous worldwide. Its tour stops at the Italian Mutual Benevolent Society tomb, which it calls the Easy Rider tomb.
Entry is by guided tour only. The official tour runs daily from $29 for 55 minutes, checking in at 501 Basin Street, and its takings help restore the tombs.
Entry by guided tour only, booked ahead. The official tour checks in at 501 Basin Street.
New Orleans · From $29 · 55 minutes · book ahead
Entry is by guided tour only. Daily tours check in at 501 Basin Street; the takings help restore the tombs.
Book a tourLA 105, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana
The St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission says the film’s final moments were shot in Krotz Springs, as Wyatt and Billy ride along the levee beside Highway 105.
The film ends here, and we leave it there. What you will find today is a two-lane road on a levee beside the Atchafalaya.
Two Krotz Springs residents, Johnny David and D.C. Billodeau, appear in the scene. The commission points visitors to the exact spot on its map.
A working two-lane road along the levee. Pull right off before you stop, and stay off the levee itself.
Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico
Hopper first came to New Mexico in the late 1960s to scout locations for Easy Rider, and lived in Taos for many years.
His memorial service was held at the San Francisco de Asís chapel in Ranchos de Taos on 2 June 2010. Jack Nicholson was there. He is buried in Taos.
On 17 May 2014, which would have been his 78th birthday, the first Easy Rider Ride for Dennis Hopper Day set off from the plaza at Ranchos de Taos for Taos Plaza. The evening ended with a screening of the film.
An active parish church on a public plaza. Walk round the outside at any time; go in quietly, and not during services.
10 places you can visit, from the Colorado River at Topock to the levee at Krotz Springs. New Buffalo is private land: named, not mapped. Sacred Mountain is seen from Highway 89 and not pinned.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Look across the river from the Arizona bank at Topock. Never stop on the interstate for a photograph.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The building is empty: look from Old Route 66. The film’s sign is a short walk away, inside the Roadhouse Bar & Grill.
Topock, Mohave County, Arizona
Route 66 News says longtime Route 66 travellers will recognise the Colorado River bridge near Needles, California, in the opening credits.
Look across the river from the Arizona bank at Topock. Never stop on the interstate for a photograph.
Old Route 66, Bellemont, Coconino County, Arizona
Rider Magazine says the film’s Pine Breeze Inn was a now-abandoned gas station about a quarter of a mile from Grand Canyon Harley-Davidson on old Route 66. The building still stands.
The building is empty: look from Old Route 66. The film’s sign is a short walk away, inside the Roadhouse Bar & Grill.
Stay
The Plaza Hotel on the plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and The View Hotel in Monument Valley.
Las Vegas, New Mexico · Rates on booking · 505-425-3591
Opened in 1882 as “The Belle of the Southwest”, on the plaza where the parade was shot. Seventy rooms, nineteen of them over the park.
Check roomsMonument Valley · Rates on booking
Rooms, valley-rim cabins and a campground with RV and wilderness sites, looking out over the buttes.
Check roomsGo there
The official St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 tour, Wupatki, the Monument Valley tribal park, and tours from the marketplace.
New Orleans · From $29 · 55 minutes · book ahead
Entry is by guided tour only. Daily tours check in at 501 Basin Street; the takings help restore the tombs.
Book a tourNorth of Flagstaff · $25 a vehicle · covers Sunset Crater too · 7 days
The first night’s camp. The Lomaki trail is a half-mile round trip, open sunrise to sunset all year.
Fees and passesArizona–Utah line · Entry from $10 · book online
Where Kovács panned into an indigo sky. The 17-mile loop is rough dirt with deep sand.
Park entryNew Orleans
Live marketplace results for licensed cemetery tours in New Orleans. Check that the itinerary goes inside St. Louis No. 1.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursMonument Valley
Live marketplace results for Navajo-guided tours in Monument Valley. None is an Easy Rider tour as such.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare toursWhat’s on
Fat Tuesday is 9 February 2027: the first thing the film ever shot.
Checking current event dates…
Take it home
Original 1969 German and Yugoslavian posters from our store, Peter Fonda’s memoir and the Dunhill soundtrack LP.
An original 1969 German release poster, A1 (23.4 x 33.1 in), rolled; near mint.
In stock
View posterAn original 1969 Yugoslavian release poster, 19 x 27 in, rolled, previously folded; near mint.
In stock
View posterPeter Fonda
Peter Fonda’s memoir, published by Hyperion in 1998.
Find the bookVarious Artists · LP, Dunhill, 1969
The soundtrack album, on Dunhill in the US in August 1969.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Keep riding.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
12 of 12 places · 23 of 23 Moments
Topock, Mohave County, Arizona
A three-week scout, mostly along Route 66, finds the film’s backgrounds.
The riders cross the Colorado River near Needles in the opening credits.
Licensing the songs costs about $1 million, roughly three times what the rest of the film cost to shoot.
Old Route 66, Bellemont, Coconino County, Arizona
The Pine Breeze Inn sign switches to No Vacancy and Billy and Wyatt are turned away on their first night.
The No Vacancy sign from the film hangs in the entry of the Roadhouse Bar & Grill in Bellemont.
US 89, about 20 miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona
They fill up at Sacred Mountain on Highway 89 after picking up a hitchhiker.
Wupatki National Monument, Coconino County, Arizona
The first night’s camp is shot at Wupatki National Monument.
The campfire flicker is made by shaking torn cloth strips in front of a lamp and moving a leafy branch near the lens, with amber gel and sometimes no fill at all.
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, on the Arizona–Utah line
Kovács pans as the sun goes down into an indigo sky, on a faster stock he saved for low light.
A crew of twelve spends about twelve weeks on the road, with a truck just for the bikes.
Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu Canyon, Los Angeles County
The commune is a set built in the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu Canyon.
Arroyo Hondo, north of Taos (private land)
New Buffalo, the commune the film depicts, will not let Hopper film there.
Plaza Park, Las Vegas, San Miguel County, New Mexico
They ride into a parade in Las Vegas, New Mexico, shot in the week before 7 June 1968.
St Francis Plaza, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico
The film premieres in competition at Cannes on 13 May 1969, and Hopper wins the award for a first film.
The film is released on 14 July 1969, made for an estimated $340,000.
Hopper’s memorial service is held at San Francisco de Asís; Jack Nicholson is there.
The first Easy Rider Ride leaves the plaza at Ranchos de Taos on what would have been Hopper’s 78th birthday.
LA 1, Morganza, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana
Local people play the diners at Melancon’s Café in Morganza.
For the 50th anniversary Morganza rebuilds a two-storey façade of the café on its original spot.
Basin Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
The real Mardi Gras is filmed in 16mm on 27 February 1968, before the main shoot.
Hopper hands ten rented 16mm Bolex cameras to actors to shoot the streets; the footage helps raise the money.
The cemetery sequence makes St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 famous worldwide.
LA 105 north of Krotz Springs, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana
The final moments are shot on the levee beside Highway 105, outside Krotz Springs.
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