filming cross country trip!

hi all! i'm a student at georgia state working on my film degree and i want to do a student project about life on the road, a trucker's life kind of thing. so i was hoping that i could get some help from your experiences.

i'm looking to travel cross country (or half across), stopping at fun sites and truck stops, talking to truckers, finding out more about the life of a trucker, what you do on the road, crazy stories, everything really.

if anyone wouldn't mind helping me out about where the best places are to go, please let me know!! i am hoping to explore the most i can - the good stuff (fun stops, restaurants) and the bad as well (i've read up on some stuff about lot lizards, stealing gas, drug dealers). and also places i should just completely avoid.

the reason i want to do this is that i want to get out of classes for a week!
and when i was a kid my family and i took road trips to visit family in texas and i remember having fun being on the road and seeing all the big trucks, waving at the truck driver to blow the horn and everything!

i've read some negative stuff about truckers and the truck stop world and i would like to explore everything and balance it out with all the great things about traveling across country.

i'd appreciate any info that you guys can give me! thanks!!

 

thanks so much for the info!

i've started mapping out our trip starting from atlanta working to oklahoma city then making our way up to iowa then back down to atlanta.

a friend of mine from arkansas said that i should skip the west memphis truck stops but there's a big cluster of them there right?

is there a reason why i should skip it all together?