The Best (and Worst) Truck Stops in America

Truck stops and rest areas are rarely the focus of national conversations, but they’re where a significant part of the country’s freight system takes a breather. For anyone driving long distances, they’re a potentially life-saving infrastructure that provides a chance to rest and drive safely thereafter.

We wanted to find the best and worst the country has to offer, so we collected and analyzed reviews from Google Maps from almost 100,000 truck stops and rest stops across the US and mapped the good and the bad.

A State of Zen

Vermont tops the list for rest stop quality, based on average Google Maps ratings, being the only state to snatch the 4.5-star average rating. Interestingly, the island state of Hawaii comes in second, despite its lack of interstate highways. Iowa, Alaska, and New Hampshire round out the top five.

At the bottom of the list, drivers get the worst experience in New Jersey, which averaged just 3.86 in its rest stop reviews. Colorado and Massachusetts came in only marginally better, both achieving average ratings under 4.0.

However, there are a million different reasons for a good or bad review. Next, we wanted to focus on something the US is famous for…

Service With a Smile

We ran the analysis focusing only on reviews that mentioned the quality of customer service received. Comparing these results to the original state averages allowed us to isolate the opinions on the friendliness and hospitality felt.

Immediately noticeable was that service-related reviews were below average in every state, suggesting that people take more notice of service when it is bad. For Delaware and Florida, the bad service did not go unnoticed, with their service-related reviews averaging more than a full point lower than their baseline ratings.

Massachusetts, on the other hand, saw a difference of just -0.1 between its overall rest stop score and the average of reviews mentioning service, suggesting the service there is at least consistent with the quality of the rest stops. West Virginia and South Dakota were similarly stable.

But no state gets it right (or wrong) 100% of the time, so we broke the country into smaller regions to find the areas with truck stops so good they are worth a detour.

A Welcome Break

We broke the US into a grid of 1,770km^2 hexagons to find which local regions have a high concentration of truck and rest stops, and then reapplied the review ratings data. The result was the above map of rest stop hotspots and the average quality at each.

In and around Waynesville, N.C., we found a cluster of consistently well-rated stops. Achieving an overall average rating of 4.7 from over 7,000 reviews, it ranks as the national capital for high-quality rest stops.

Boulder, CO., takes the unfortunate opposite distinction. Rest stops in the area achieved an average 3.0 rating from over 2,000 reviews. That said, the 2nd-best area nationally is also in the state – Glenwood Springs. This area is another hotspot for rest stops of good quality, achieving an average rating of 4.6, so if you’re driving through the state, it may be worth taking your rest on the west side.

Planning your stops is worth considering for all your journeys – and if you’re covering serious miles, it helps to know which stops are especially worth pulling over for.

A Break on the Busiest Roads

Knowing good states and areas to rest in is useful, as nothing beats having a reliable home away from home when on the road. We took the 3 busiest interstates in the country for freight travel (the I-80, I-10, and I-95) and found the top-rated individual truck or rest stop on each highway.

Along I-80, the Salt Flats Rest Area, Located in Utah, stands out with a 4.6 average rating from over 2,000 reviews. It’s as much a historical and natural landmark as it is a rest stop. Positioned by the Bonneville Salt Flats, famous for their unique landforms and high-speed races that have resulted in many world land speed records, reviewers mention the landscape as much as the facilities.

Along I-10, the highest-rated stop is the Official Florida Welcome Center, with a 4.7 rating from nearly 8,000 reviews. It’s clean, consistently well-reviewed, and known for handing out free orange juice to welcome travelers to the Sunshine State.

And along I-95, the Georgia Welcome Center takes the top spot with a 4.6 average from more than 8,400 reviews. Reviewers point to its cleanliness, overnight safety, and small museum-like interior (including a Tom Hanks statue).

These three stops stand out above the crowd – and interestingly, not one of them is run by the big corporations that run most US rest stops.

The Big Four

There are thousands of truck rest stops in the US, but the majority of them are not welcome centers run by their states but stops operated by a few large corporations. We took a look at the 4 largest names in rest stops to see how they stacked up against each other and the national average.

The average rest stop in the US has a review score of 4.17. Petro, the best of the big 4, scores on average a 3.88 rating, falling short of the national average by 0.3. 34% of Petros are rated above the national average of 4.17, meaning that each time you pull in, there is only a 1 in 3 chance you’ll have an above-average experience.

For TravelCenters of America (widely known as “TA”), the lowest-rated of the big 4, the reviews aren’t so kind. A rating of 3.66 put them a significant 0.5 below average. Only 13% of TAs score above the national average, meaning that the vast majority of the time, a rest at a TravelCenters delivers an underwhelming experience.

Conclusion

Our analysis shows how drivers experience the roads and rests of long-haul travel and freight. With the majority of truck stops and rest stops operated by major brands, it’s notable that the best-rated locations are local, consistent, and often independent.

At altLINE, we focus on helping freight businesses stay on the move financially, but it’s clear that where drivers stop matters too. So if you’re thinking about where the trucking industry is headed next, follow the freight, but also follow the feedback.

Methodology

Between June 12 and July 5, 2025, we used Google Maps to search every U.S. ZIP code for “Truck Stops” and “Rest Stops,” collecting up to 500 business listings per search.

From these results, we filtered out any unrelated data, keeping only listings labeled by Google as one of the following types of establishments: “Rest Stop,” “Truck Stop,” “Toll Road Rest Stop,” “Gas Station,” or “Diner.”

From each location, we gathered up to 20 recent reviews and scanned them for words related to customer service: “staff,” “employee,” “employees,” “worker,” “workers,” “clerk,” “cashier,” “friendly,” “unfriendly,” “rude,” “helpful,” “polite,” “service,” “customer service,” “attendant,” or “manager.” Reviews containing at least one of these terms were flagged as service-related and used in our customer service comparison.

Washington D.C. and Rhode Island were excluded from state-level comparison analysis due to the limited volume of truck/rest stops.

For reviews of truck/rest stops on specific highways, we used Google’s listed address and checked for road mentions (e.g., I-80, I-95) to assign them to a route. Locations with fewer than 250 reviews were not included in highway-level rankings.

Finally, like with any platform-based data, there are limitations. Truck stops or rest stops that were mislabeled, misnamed, or improperly categorized by Google may have been excluded.