How to Find a Great Truck Stop on Your Run
Posted on Wed, Aug 04, 2010 @ 10:58 AM
Finding a good truck stop while you’re on a run can be difficult. Figuring out where the best ones are makes your ride a lot easier and can also shorten your time on the road. If you know where to make your stops beforehand, you won’t get caught driving long distances between stops so it is less likely that you run low on fuel and less likely you have to go out of your way to stop somewhere. Many truck stops have websites where you can see each of their locations and some even let you plot routes around the stops. Playing it by ear can leave you out to dry sometimes; don’t let uncertainty disrupt your driving, or your safety.
Companies are making it increasingly easier to find their stations. New initiatives are intended to bring in business but also to help truckers stay safe when they are on and off the road. Companies such as AMBEST, Pioneer Fuel, and Sapp Bros put a map on their website that lists all of their locations nationwide. Sapp Bros. goes a step further by integrating Google maps, allowing you to plug in your location and destination and find the best truck stops along your route. Other big companies like Shell allow you to enter your zip code and see where the closest rest stations to you are.
Companies such as Travel Centers of America and Road Ranger provide a complete directory of their locations which can give you a pinpoint on each stop so they can be easily found or plugged into a GPS navigation system. Travel Centers of America also lists specific ammenities of every individual truck stop.
Travel Centers of America and Road Ranger are just two companies that have added the GPS download to their websites. Flying J is another one of these companies. They supply a list of exact latitude and longitude degrees for each of their locations. This makes it nearly impossible to not find where a Flying J is located. After you have found the locations that are convenient on your route, you can compare which one to go to by looking at what amenities they offer. Some stops have fast food chains and others have full restaurants. Flying J gives a brief description of each station's ammenities.
With all of this information available it is very easy to find a great truck stop almost anywhere if you just do a little research prior to making your run.