How to find good truck stops?

Poor guy. You're talking about food and they're talking about garbage in a sack. Repugnant.

Here's how I do it.

1. Truck stop directory. I need a big parkinglot. Has to be right off the highway. The TSD will tell you if the truck stop has a restaurant (fork and knife emblem) or a deli, or fast food (aka garbage in a sack). What you want to look for is the mom and pop joint with the big parkinglot and the restaurant that you can eat with a fork. If it's on the common heavyhaul route, the entire OSOW crowd will stop there. If it's on the common cattle truck route, all the bullhaulers will stop there.
2. GPS the nearby area for other restaurants. If it's the only restaurant in the area, all the locals stop there. Odds are pretty darn good that mama's in the kitchen cooking up goodies.
3. If it has a bar and a motel in or right next to it, you hit the jackpot!!!!!
4. Look for the dollar sign. If it's pay parking and not a big chain truckstop, odds are (and I don't mean to sound racist, but nothing makes me angrier than to pull into a mom and pop, and the owners were imported) the restaurant was closed down because it could no longer pass the health code. If you see the dollar sign in the TSD, call the place. If it sounds foreign, blot that place out of your TSD.

Find a good spot, save it in your GPS. Find a good spot with a big parkinglot so that my guys can get superloads in, a restaurant with good food and a cute waitress AND adult beverages, contact me and say, "Six! Class 4 truckstop!" And the Cool Kids will drink the next adult beverage in your honor.

 

Never ever drink coffee from a mom and pop truckstop, unless you like the dishrag flavor

 

Bring your own groceries. The you only need a place to park. You can eat when you get hungry, eat healthier, remove one more reason to miserable OTR. BTW, you will spend about 1/3 of what it costs to eat at truck stops.

 

Helpful hint that may seem like common sense but no one really tells you: The "big name" truck stops (Love's, Pilot, Flying J, T/A, and Petro) just right outside major cities and at state borders tend to fill up first. If you've got food, rest areas are a good choice for stopping but they lack showers.

 

Check out the "cooking in the truck" thread in the "Essential information for new drivers" (on the top of the "Questions From New Drivers" forum) about tips and tricks for cooking in the truck. It'll help save a ton of money and be considerably healthier.

 

Penn 80, although it has a huuuuge parking area, has the worst coffee I've bought on the road. CoffeeMate creamer singles (I bought a pint of whole milk to use). I got my cup filled while the pot was full, nowhere near the bottom. I had a mouthful of grounds on the last drink. Not just 5-8, I'm talking a teaspoon amount.... Luckily I had an empty water bottle to spit, rinse, and spit again into. I very nearly pulled over to vomit.

 

The good truck stops are the ones that lot lizards are not knocking on your door at 3am or nobody blocking you in because of the illegal parking and the ones that don't charge you for parking

 

I use trucker path pro to find out of the way mom and pop truck stops. They tend to have parking when I need it (I run team so that could be anytime).

They are generally quieter and lower traffic than the big chain stops, which translates to shorter wait times and usually cleaner facilities.

The drawbacks are that the places tend to be older, we can't fuel off network (Pilot/flyingJ/Love's for us) and aren't always open 24/hrs.

Truck Path Pro lists all restaurants in the vicinity and allows users to rate them. This is most useful, although prepare yourself for a deluge of hyper negativity and blatant racism in the reviews.

 

That's not coffee grounds. That's Bertha's used up Skoal.